


31DWC - A World Far Gone

by haise_potter



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Blood and Gore, Dark Fantasy, F/M, I don't get too descriptive with the gore, idk i guess it's kind of mild, it'll gave fantasy elements in it eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-04 15:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 27,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5339861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haise_potter/pseuds/haise_potter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a collection of short stories. Stories take place in a Post-Apocalyptic world where Reader has joined a group made up of Kuroo, Kenma, Oikawa, Iwaizumi, Ushijima, and Bokuto. Each story shows the small struggles they face.</p><p>Will also be posted on my DeviantArt (DatAwesome) and Tumblr (sinning-senpai)</p><p>*ON HIATUS! Check Deviantart or my Tumblr blog (check the writing blog, not my personal blog) for updates and explaintions*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Winter

Winter was here, the trees were stripped off all their colorful leaves, the air was turning colder; it was time to break out the winter jackets and snow boots. [Name] walks around the abandoned building in her torn-up military boots, and even though she had three pairs of socks on, the cold still managed to slip in through the cloth, through the layers of her skin, past the muscle, and directly into the bones.

It was a matter of time until they had to start moving again. The winters were always harsh, and Kenma was getting sicker, he couldn’t handle this cold anymore. Moving down South was the best and only decision they could do at the moment. Plus if Kenma got sick, then [Name] would be next, then the entire group would fall behind to take care of the two sickest and weakest members. 

“Ready?” Kuroo asks, putting on his hiking backpack. [Name] takes a few minutes to look at the place they had called home for the past couple of months. If She and Kenma didn’t have such a weak immune systems, and if they had better gear, this place wouldn’t have been a bad place to live in for the rest of their lives. Of course… that wouldn't work anyways; they'd have to leave again, they always had to, or else someone would find them.

“Hurry up, [Name]-chan!” Even with the world in shambles; Oikawa was as cheerful as ever. Humanity was gone, as far as they knew, they were the last alive— probably— but here he was, bouncing around with that smile on his dirt-covered face.

Nowadays, even Iwaizumi didn’t constantly tell Oikawa to shut up, he just stood there with a bitter smile on his face. Oikawa was like a shining light of hope, he brought the group something that those alive in distant parts had lost a long time ago, he brought hope.

“I’m coming.” Came her reply. She picked up her backpack, double checking to make sure she had all her things. Things she kept from the old world— even if they weren’t hers in the beginning— were anchors that kept her to fantasy. Kuroo coughs, signalling for everyone to gather round at the makeshift indoor campground; he begins his speech, one he always made before they moved.

“Let’s head out. Remember stay close, watch over each other. Kill if you have to, we won’t allow another casualty in our group, not again.” Kuroo says, standing up from the log he sat on, the other six stood up along with him. “[Name], get in the middle.”

It was always like this when they were outside. [Name] was always in the middle of the group, being the only girl, the boys felt like they had a huge responsibility to protect her from all the evils that ventured in the unknown. It annoyed her to no end, she hated being treated like a baby; but in the end, she couldn’t deny that this formation really has saved her before.

There have been situations where the boys have had to kill attacking groups that attempted to ambush them, even though she’s armed with an old rusty ax, she couldn’t find herself thinking about a day where she’d have to bring this down on someone who was once human.

“Where are we going this time?” [Name] asks, tugging on the back of Kuroo’s jacket. He looks at her from over his shoulder, only shrugging.

“Somewhere warm.” Was his—  ironically—  cold reply. She should stop asking him this question, it’s always like this. [Name] goes back to holding her ax with both hands, it was like her best friend, it used to belong to an old member of the group, but life was too cruel and ripped him away from the group  months after this entire thing began.

She feels tears forming at the corners of her eyes, from the memories of her dead friend and Kuroo’s cold response. The tears stop from breaking out when a large warm hand lands on her shoulder; she looks up to see Ushijima looking straight ahead, but his eyes quickly dart to look at the small girl from his peripheral vision.

This was his quiet way of making her feel better.

“Thanks Ushiwaka.” She sniffs, wiping her nose with the back of her parka sleeve. Kuroo mentally curses at himself when he hears her sniffle; he didn’t intend on making her almost cry, but fuck this world was taking everything and changing it. Their teen years taken away when the war broke out, taken when the Little Boys were dropped.

Kuroo and Bokuto walk in front of the group, Ushiwaka and Kenma take their spots on both sides of [Name]. In the back was Oikawa and Iwaizumi. With everyone in position, they took their leave. Abandoning this nice building that protected them from all the dangers the bare woods surrounding them brought.

[Eye Color] eyes look over at Kenma, he had dark bags under his eyes and in his hands he held the dead psp he used to play with all the time. Even though it didn’t work anymore, he still found his fingers rapidly pushing against the buttons, making up a fake game and image in his mind. It was hard for all of them to get used to this, having to give up the technology they were so used to.

“Kenma.” She whispered out his name, and even though his eyes are primarily concentrated ahead of him, his hands kept hitting the buttons with perfect accuracy. She says his name again, still no reaction from him. Over the years, they’ve all figured out that this was Kenma’s way of anchoring himself to sanity. They all have anchors to keep them sane.

Iwaizumi pats her head, she looks over to see him give her a curt nod. She understood that she shouldn’t bother Kenma until they’ve reached a stop. [Name] turns to look ahead as well, but that was hard when there were two tall boys walking in front of her; so she focuses her attention to the dark ashy sky above them.

It looked like this all year round thanks to the pollution from the war. This was Mother Nature’s way to say ‘Fuck You’ to all the humans left alive on the bare land. A harsh wind comes down making the group collectively groan in displeasure. In the distance the loud sounds of trees falling down fill the silent air.

If a tree were to fall in the middle of the woods and no one was around, would it make a sound? Yes, yes it would— in this situation is would make a very loud noise to alert anyone within a five mile radius.

It was becoming darker, they had been walking all day. Kuroo signals for them to stop, he takes a few moments to observe their new surroundings, they could stop here and make camp for the night. “We’ll stay here for the night. Kenma start the fire, Ushijima and Bokuto skin the animals we caught, [Name] go gather some berries from nearby bushes, don’t go too far though, Oikawa, Iwaizumi, and I will go search the area.

“Yes sir, yes!” [Name] says with determination in her voice, scurrying off to gather herbs and berries. Luckily for them, this area still looked alive, almost as if half of the world didn’t get destroyed. [Name] hums in content, skipping through the woods and gathering all edible berries in her pockets.

A twig snap is heard behind her, [Name] freezes up in fear, looking back at a rattling bush. Her instincts screamed at her to run away to the safety of her friends, but her curiosity was getting the best of her. She slowly gets near the tree, hands balled up in fists.

With her right she pushes parts of the branches away and a small bunny jumps out. [Name] stands there with a cute smile on her face, her hands reaching out to grab the adorable little animal in front of her.

“Aw, aren’t you a little cutie?” She leans down.

“And aren’t you a little cutie?” A deep voice whispers in her ear, she jumps up in fear, turning around to see a tall man with shaggy brown hair and a dark smile looming over her.

She attempts to scream but his large hand covers her mouth. He pulls her up, turning her around, pushing her up against his chest. He attempts to drag her farther off in the woods.

 _Quick! Think of something! Do something!”_ Her mind is racing, she thinks back to all the self-defense techniques that the boys showed her. She remembers the one where she almost broke Bokuto’s nose. [Name] leans her head forward, then brings it back in a quick motion; the back of her head connecting with the man’s nose. A loud crack noise is heard along with the arms around her losing up.

She takes this short time to make a run for it, going back to camp screaming at the top of her lungs to alert the boys. She falls through the open space. Ushijima and Bokuto run over to her, picking her and bring her to the fire where Kenma stood with his rifle ready to shoot.

Kuroo, Oikawa, and Iwaizumi come running back to camp, their weapons out and ready, just like Kenma. The air turns tense, [Name] was shaking with fear and clinging to Kenma’s jacket.

A laugh alerts them, Kuroo turns to the source to see a group of ten masked men appear. Kuroo raises up his sword, he wasn’t going to let these punks hurt his friends, not today.

“What do you want?” Kuroo asks, his voice rough.

“Not much, just that girl you’re hiding. We know she’s with you. Hand her over and we won’t hurt any of your boys.” The man standing in front of the group says, holding his hands up to show peace. Kuroo growls, as if he’d just go and give up [Name] to a bunch of sick freaks.

“Fuck off.”

“Oh? We tried to ask you nicely, but it seems like we’re just gonna have to rip her out of your hands. Boys, you know what to do.” With a snap of his fingers, the men behind him rush forward, wielding their own weapons.

“Cover [Name]! Don’t let them even lay a single finger on her!” Kuroo shouts back. Kenma aims and fires at two men, Kuroo clashes swords with another underling. All of them were busy

“[Name]! Run into the woods! Go hide!” He shouts over his shoulder, digging  his foot into his opponent’s stomach and kicking him down to the ground. With the man down, he swings his sword down, the blade slices through the skull directly into the brain. He stares down at his dead opponent with satisfaction, he didn’t notice someone coming up behind him,

“Kuroo!” He hears her shout his name; the masked leader appear behind him, sword high in the air and ready to slice it through Kuroo’s body. From his peripheral vision, he sees [Name]’s black jacket rushes past him, her ax was in swinging position before she disappears from his vision.

Something red and wet washes over Kuroo’s back, time slows down and his mind is reeling with all the bad scenarios he’s been scared of. He slowly turns his head to look back, praying that the blood on his back wasn’t from the girl they tried so hard to protect; fortunately, his assumption is correct..

He finds full control of his body, he turns around to find [Name] standing over the dead body, her ax on the floor and covered with fresh blood. She’s got blood splattered all over her front as well; her eyes are wide with shock and horror and she’s got tears streaming down her face.

 _Did she really do it? Did she actually kill someone?_ Looking down at her blood-covered hands though hazy and blurry eyes, her thoughts are confirmed; she’s a killer. Her scream ripples through the air, alerting the rest of the attackers who were still alive, and others nearby. They immediately run away from the group, disbanding into all different directions; now that their leader was dead, they had no orders to follow.

[Name] falls down to the ground, shoving her face in between her legs, gut-wrenching loud sobs mixed with her distressed screams were heard. Kuroo was the first one to sit behind her and pull her into his lap; he wraps his arms around her, rocking their bodies back and forth to calm her down.

[Name] buries her face in his chest, her ax long forgotten in the red-stained snow.

“Shush, it’s fine. You did good. You did a good job.” Kuroo tries to encourage her, tries to show her that what she did wasn’t frowned upon anymore. It was survival of the fittest here.

Oikawa, Bokuto, Ushijima, and Iwazumi pick up the dead body and drag it somewhere so that [Name] wouldn’t see it anymore. Kenma picks up the ax and walks off to clean the blood off. Getting rid of the evidence, maybe they could convince her that this was all a dream.

Kuroo knew better, the innocent girl he tried so hard to protect was tainted with the same sin everyone else was, she was apart of this game now, and soon killing will become second nature to her, just like it did with them.

 

 


	2. Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Water is near and something lurks deep within.

“Do you ever wonder why this happened?” She asked, sitting down in Kuroo’s lap. He wraps his arms around her as they hear a few trees in the distance fall over. The rest of the group slept huddled together under the torn blankets with the waterproof tent cover above the blankets.

It wasn’t as cold as it used to be, probably because they were getting closer to the south. Thank goodness too, any minute longer and [Name] and Kenma would have fallen victims to the treacherous flu.

Kuroo thinks about her question for a bit, he thought that exact same thing everyday since this happen; he could never really answer himself either, so he just went and told her exactly what he thought.

“I honestly don’t know. Adults are weird, governments are weird, they don’t fight like normal people and keep it between themselves, they enjoy bringing innocent people into their fights. They enjoy seeing the anguish in our eyes, but sometimes it gets out of hand.”

“Like it did this time?” She looks up at him with those curious eyes. [Name] tended to act like a little child around them, it was a cute, but she also knew when to act serious. It was a good balance in her personality.

“Exactly like this time.” He rubs her hair. [Name] hums resting her head against his chest, Kuroo couldn’t help but hug her harder. Ever since the attack, he’s been more overly-protective of her, never letting her leave his sight and always sending Kenma to help her berry hunt.

The thought of anything happening to her broke what remained of his heart. She was this ray of hope that he needed; he was drawn to her like a moth was drawn to light.

Slightly moving to lay himself on his back with her resting on his chest. One arm wrapped around her, the other one playing with her hair.

[Name] feels herself relaxing more, the tension in her shoulders slowly leaving, and her eyes closing. Not too long afterwards, she’s fallen asleep, only light snores alerting Kuroo that she was asleep.

He takes a few minutes to look around and he figures that he might as well go to sleep too, they had to keep moving once the morning came again, hopefully nobody decides to attack them, then again— who in their right mind would decided that the best time to attack was in the middle of the night when it was pitch black?

An absolute lunatic that's who; but luckily for them, no lunatics were out in these woods this night. So peacefully they slept, enjoying the small pleasures their brains invented for them as an escape from this cruel reality. Dreams vivid with color and all things that this new world didn't contain.

Morning came, and the mutated birds sang their horrible songs, waking up the majority of the group— excluding Kenma and [Name], who were still trapped in their own little dreamland.

“Should we wake them up?” Oikawa asks, hovering over the two shorties. Iwaizumi and Kuroo exchange a glance, waking them up would be a good idea and it wouldn't hold them back, but after the stressful events that have occurred lately, maybe letting them indulge on some more sleep wouldn't be so bad…  just this once though. They couldn't spoil them all the time.

“Ushijima, do you think you could carry [Name]?” Kuroo calls out to the tall ace who was packing up everyone’s bags with Bokuto. Ushijima nods, handing over his bag to Bokuto and walking over to [Name], picking her up and carrying her on his back.

She was slightly justled when she was being picked back, her eyes opened up a bit but closed right back when the grey light shined in her eyes. [Name] let’s out a groan, but sleep calls her back into its grasp, wrapping its imagery arms around her like a blanket and pulling her back under an ocean of falsehood.

Ushijima stiffens up a bit, not wanting to reach over to pull her out of that ocean of lies, he’d let her enjoy whatever lies her brain invented to prevent any trauma. Kuroo motions Bokuto to Kenma. So now Oikawa and Iwaizumi were in charge of carrying their bags. Kuroo grabs Kenma’s shotgun, checking the cylinder to make sure it was loaded; he didn’t want to shoot someone and it turns out there weren’t any more bullets left.

“Let’s go.” Kuroo shouts. Keeping his eyes and ears open. He’d have to be more careful, with two of his boys holding Kenma and [Name], he has to jump in front of them if danger comes a callin’.

It was miles before [Name] and Kenma finally woke up. With them on their feet now, Ushijima and Bokuto could grab their things. [Name] and Kenma were still feeling a bit drowsy, so they used each other as support until the rest of their drowsiness was gone.

“[Name]... do you hear that…” Kenma yawns. [Name] mutters unintelligible words. The stumble along the dirt road. Oikawa and Iwaizumi were helping the two from walking off course and falling down. Both of them snap out of their sleepy state when they heard loud sounds.

The sounds of waves crashing against land was heard not too far. Everyone stops to look at each other. Were they hearing correctly? Were they actually hearing the ocean? Their eyes all turn to the left where the noise was coming from, the sounds of abnormal seagulls squawking around in the sky above was all they needed to started running towards the sound.

It was a short run, but with their heavy bags dragging them down, it wasn’t as easy as it should’ve been; but it didn’t matter, all that was important was the moment they broke free out of the forest, their boots landing on top of sand, the salty taste in the air and the sight of the vast ocean made them all cry out in joy.

`Hugs were shared, tears of joy were shed, along with backpacks and clothes. They carefully run across the beach, avoiding the sharp objects lodged deep in the ground, remains of weapons, aircrafts, washed up trash.

[Name]’s the first to reach the water, she dips her feet in the water to test out the temperatures, for this time of the year the water was unnaturally warm. She waddles deeper into the water, closing her eyes and allowing herself to sink down into it.

Splashing follows behind her, the boys are all there enjoying this moment. [Name] lays on her back, floating on the water and watching the gray clouds fly above her. Her moment doesn’t last long because soon she feels herself being lifted up by Oikawa and Bokuto, she squeals out a “Don’t you dare do it!” but the still did it; they dropped her down into the water, she’s swallowed up. At first she closes her eyes, but she opens them to find a whole different world.

Lights… all around, pretty fishes were swimming around, nearing her face and planting fish kisses all over her. She looks up to see she’s falling farther down, which confuses her. She was floating over the shallow end, but here she saw everybody’s legs standing over her, calling her name.

Suddenly a dark figure dashes past her, she head follows the direction of the shadow, she squints her eyes to see what it was. The shadow appears before her again, she moves her head in to get a closer look when the face of an unfamiliar boy appears right in front of her. If she wasn’t currently underwater, she would’ve gasped.

 _“Who are you?”_ She hears a male’s voice in her mind, her eyes widen. How did this work? How was this possible? _“If you’re wondering about how I’m able to do this, I’m not so exactly sure about the telepathy, but everything else is due to the radiation. These are the aftereffects of the war.”_

 _“Everything else?”_ She questions. The boy moves back, enabling her to see the rest of his body. The top half, starting from his hips, was the body of an average boy; his bottom half took the shape of shark’s body.

Merman…

_“What’s your name?”_

_“I’m [Name] [Last Name]. What’s your name?”_

_“I don’t know…”_ He says. Oh how sad… a person without a name, without an identity.

_“How long have you been like this?”_

_“Ever since I woke up in the water, I don’t know when that was, but… nevermind. I’ve been like this since the beginning.”_ He says swimming around her in a circle, she turns in a full circle to follow him. More questions popping up into her mind.

_“Do you ever wonder why this happened?”_

_“What happened to me or what happened to the world?”_

_“The world.”_ She scolds herself for not wording the sentence properly the first time. She hopes she didn’t come off as a jerk to the nice Merman.

_“What happened… leaders got greedy. The governments wanted land, power, money. Their souls were slowly covered in pure sin. What disgusts me the most, is that you humans allowed this to happen. No one stood up against them, your own kind allowed them to kill all of you. Now look, you reap what you sow.”_

[Name] is surprised at his confident answer. Every time she asked one of the boys this question, they would always beat around the bush or say they didn’t know. Merman’s answer was the most blunt and straightforward answer she’s ever gotten… and she’s happy about it.

_“Thank you for being honest.”_

_“Why are you thanking me? If I’m not honest then I’ll be infringing on someone else’s sin.”_

_“What’s your sin?”_

_“Pride. Tell me now, [Name]. If I made you an offer of staying here with me, would you? Here you’ll never have to constantly move around, you will never live in fear again, life here would see as if all those bad things in life never happened.”_ [Name] finds her mind drifting off to look at the legs of her friends. He sees follows where her eyes were staring.

 _“Or do you want to go back?”_ He asks, looking up to see the legs of her friends moving around. Did she want to go back? Everything down here in the ocean seemed so great… so peaceful. She wouldn’t have to go back fighting for survival. Looking behind the boy she sees a city of other people who looked exactly like the boy but with different fish bodies. Everything looked great but… She looks back up too see her friends, she couldn’t. She’s made up her mind.

 _“I’d like to go back.”_ She looks the merman straight in the eyes with determination. He chuckles, wrapping an arm around her wrist and swimming her up to the surface. They’re going faster and faster, and for a moment [Name] is scared that they’ll crash against the surface of the water, she prepares to cover her face when the boy speaks up.

 _“Hey kid, you asked for my name, it’s Lucifer.”_ The name sounds familiar, and once it registers to her, everything turns black.

***

She gasps loudly, her lungs expanding with the deep intakes of oxygen; rapidly looking around at her surroundings. She’s flailing around in the water and when she turns around she finds the boys all looking at her with confusion written all over their faces.

“Are you okay?” Iwaizumi asks, getting near her and placing his hand over her forehead.

“Y-yeah… where’s…  ” She tries to say his name but she forgot. She suddenly realizes that she can’t remember a majority of the conversation she had with him… almost as if were a dream. “How long was I gone?”

“What are you talking about? You resurfaced after we dropped you in the water and then you just started floating over the water again.” Bokuto says, his hands resting on his bare hips, head tilted to the side. Oikawa nods, confirming Bokuto’s words.

“I uh…” She doesn’t know what to say, her face turns red. Maybe they were right? She probably just made up the entire thing. She did tend to have an overactive imagination, maybe that was it. The boys all go back to playing around, she keeps standing there until Kuroo walks over to her.

“[Name] get over here, let me wash your hair. It’s dirty.” Kuroo says, grabbing onto her arm and pulling her over. She holds back a groan, she could easily do it herself, but she allowed Kuroo to do it just this one time. She liked seeing that smile on his face. Pushing all her worried to the back of her mind, she relaxed against Kuroo's hands.

For the first time in forever it felt like they were kids again, and for once everything felt… _fine._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess this is where I'm gonna start the dark fantasy aspect of the story? I just wanted to mix my two favorite genres together so sorry not sorry.
> 
> So who's this Lucifer? Is he really THE Lucifer? Or just some random fish boy named Lucifer? Fun Fact: Lucifer means "bringing light" or "morning star". It's derived from the Latin "Lux" meaning "light" and "ferre" meaning "to bring"
> 
> Hope you like the new story, check in later tonight or tomorrow for the next part!


	3. Walk Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone spends sometime with their most prized possessions, but when a stranger runs by and steals everything from them, it's up to them to decide wither possessions or their humanity is more important.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put a lot of cursing in this one. So beware if you don't like that.

Letting go was always a hard thing, it didn't matter what you were letting go. You could be letting go of the baby blanket you loved so much as a child, you could be letting go of the first bike you ever had, you could be letting go of a person, you could be letting go of the past… all in all, letting go was hard. It took _true_ willpower to fully let go.

Here the small group of seven people stand around the camp; all of them currently occupied.

Kenma sat under a partially bare tree, pretending to play with his psp, eyes rapidly moving back and forth as if he was really playing a game. He was unhealthily in love with this lie.

[Name] sat next to him playing around with her rusty silver pocket watch. She’s received it from Kuroo for her birthday; even after these years, she’s never taken it off. It gave her a sense of security, calmed her nerves down when anxiety had her by the throat, and livened her up in the darkest of times.

Ushijima sat near the fire, reading his wore-out-from-constant-reading sports magazine that featured him when he was the best player in Japan… back then… he hated looking back then, at all the possibilities he could have had if that damn war didn’t start.

Bokuto puts on his old knee pads. He walks around and falls on them, pretending to save a ball from hitting the ground, he next pretends to receive a ball from Akaashi… oh Akaashi, why did you have to sacrifice yourself? If they had worked together with everyone then no one would have had to die.

Iwaizumi runs his fingers over his old volleyball uniform. The memories of fighting alongside so many of his teammates… watching them die right in front of his eyes. The memories this shirt brought were painful, but he couldn't part way with it because it also brought good memories along with it.

Oikawa examined the volleyball poster. He wished the world could have at least waited a couple of months until after his next battle against Ushijima, he wanted at least one chance to prove how strong he was.

And finally Kuroo, sat the farthest away from everyone, in his hands he looked at the group photo in his hand. It was from his 3rd year, a photo of the entire Nekoma volleyball team. [Name] stood in the front with her smile wide and eyes shining with pure joy. Kenma stood next to her, a tiny— but visible! — present on his face. Kuroo stood behind them with his arms wrapped around the two of them. It was a great day… a lot of things happened that day, but it brought back an awful pain whenever Kuroo thought back at the good times.

Everyone admired the small items they held, the memories all these items contained. Everyone was so consumed in their thoughts that no one noticed a white haired boy with red eyes walking into the camp; it wasn’t until the stranger let out a cough that everyone was fully focused on him.

“Who are you?” Kuroo draws his sword, clumsily shoving the photograph into his back pocket. The rest of the group jumps into a ready-to-fight position. The stranger just smirks, shoving his hands in his jean pockets.

“Look at you guys! The fear so clearly visible on all your faces! I find it to be _quite_ adorable.” If the smirk on his face could stretch any wider, it would. [Name] sneaks around through the trees to try to sneak up behind him, if she couldn’t kill him at least the most she could do was buy enough time for her friends to attack him.

With quiet small steps, carefully avoiding the debris on the ground, she raises the butt end of her ax, ready to strike at the back of his head, when she was close enough she swings. As the wooden part gets close to connecting to his skull, he dodges her attempted attack. He ducks his head down, digging the heel of his foot down in the ground to twist his body; one of his hands shoot out to grab her’s to prevent her from trying a second attack.

He turns her around in his grasp, with his free hand he rips her pocket watch away from her neck. She chokes a bit but the white-haired boy doesn’t care, he just throws her down to the ground. At high-speed, he runs through the camp; all the boys could see was his smirk right in front of their faces before it disappears.

Kuroo attempts to grab at him when he runs past him. The white-haired boy chuckles before disappearing in thin air.

“What the fuck?” Kuroo screams, turning around and looking in all different directions with disarray.

“Right behind you, buddy.” A whisper comes in his ear, he turns around to see that shit-eating grin and fiery-red eyes.“Thanks for the photograph, _friend_.” A hand slips into his pocket pulling out the photograph before the stranger runs off back into the woods. Everything happened in the blink of an eye, Kuroo didn’t have enough time to react until the boy started running.

“He stole our shit!” Bokuto shouts, Kuroo doesn’t really take the time to look back at his team; he just wanted his photograph back and before he knows it he finds his feet running and jumping over fallen trees, he was chasing after the stranger. He heard multiple footsteps following behind him, he assumed it was his team going to support him, oh how wrong he was.

They just wanted their shit back too, they were too caught up in a moment of anger to really think things through. Like what would they do once they caught this stranger? Who knows.

“Stop running you little fucker!” Kuroo shouts. He didn’t want to admit it since this was his enemy, but damn he ran fast. The white-haired stranger turns his upper body to face Kuroo to send him a peace sign. Oh how this added fuel to the bedhead’s anger.

“Catch me first!” The white-haired thief laughs, making a sharp turn, the sudden turn caused Kuroo to slip on a small patch of mud.

“Dammit!” Kuroo growls, pounding his fist into the dirt. He gets up and starts running again, hoping he somehow manages to catch the bastard.

 ***

The thief stops in the middle of an opening, he pants. He thinks he’s lost that troublesome group. Ha! Hilarious how desperate they were to get their things back, shows how greedy mankind has become, they’ve always only cared about material goods.

“Oh Mammon and Plutus are going to be so proud of me!” The white-haired boy laughs to himself while he looks through his brown satchel and staring at all his newly acquired items. This pocket watch would bring him in a lot of money on the market.

He lifts it up to exam the watch in the light. It was rusty and had a small problem with the hinge, but nothing a little oil and paint couldn’t fix. He was putting the watch back in his bag and putting the bag down to the ground when a larger body collided with his.

“Shit!” The white-haired boy cries out, he tumbles down to the ground along with Kuroo. The stranger lands on his stomach with Kuroo straddling his back.

“This is the fucking end!” Kuroo shouts with anger, he slightly raises the boy’s upper body so that he could place on hand on his mouth and the other on the back of his skull, he hears his group approaching the scene they all stop to see the raging anger in his eyes; they didn’t want to feel the wrath of Kuroo Tetsurou, so they stand there and watch the scene unfold; in a quick and solid motion, Kuroo jerks his hands in two opposite directions, a strangled cry and loud snap is heard before Kuroo lets go of the thief's limp body.

“Oh my—” [Name] cries out through her hands, her eyes wide in horror. Oikawa had to wrap an arm around her waist to prevent her from falling down to the ground. In all their years together in this post-apocalyptic world, she’s never seen Kuroo kill a person with his bare hands, this was a total shock for her.

“Fucker!” Kuroo spits out, glaring down at the dead body. He came in smirking like he was some sort of God, now look at him— dead and broken on the dirty ground, what a fucking _disgrace_.

His eyes leaving the body of his worthless opponent, he sees  the brown satchel the boy was carrying, his eyes reach for it. Opening it up, he throws everyone back their items. Some sighs of relief spread throughout them, the tension in their muscles disappearing. They were all happy to have their treasured items back, all of them except [Name]. She stared at the pocket watch in her hand, was this really the extreme they would go down for such worthless items? She felt horrible, her shoulders felt like Atlas had just placed the weight of the world upon them.

“Look at us!” [Name] screams, throwing her hands up in the air and glaring at her friends. “We’ve become the monsters of our past! Fighting for things that belong to a different time… what the hell is wrong with us?”

Everybody stopped obsessively admiring their possessions. They looked at each and at the things in their hands with shame. She was right. How did they let material goods get to their head?

“What should we do?” Bokuto asks, staring down at the kneepads in his hands. Ushijima coughs before speaking up.

“Burn them. Burn these things.” He scowls at the crumpled magazine in his hand. As much as they all wanted to get rid of these cursed objects, nobody could really go with the plan of burning their things; but it had to be done, for the team— for themselves.

With a new fire burning, feeding on the air and wood beneath it to grown bigger and stronger; they gather around to start with the burning of the past.

On the count of three, all together they throw their object into the fire. The feeling wasn't great, these things were their anchors to the past and the lives they used to lead. It was scary letting go but it has to be done. They stand around watching as everything burns right before their eyes, this was their final goodbye.

This was their way of _walking away_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I don't know anymore.  
> Fun Fact: Mammon (in Christian and Judaism) is a devil who symbolized Greed. Plutus is the Greek God of Wealth.  
> If you haven't noticed already, I'll be using a lot of religious symbolism in this story (as well as flower and color symbolism)  
> Gosh I'm like a high school English teacher.


	4. The Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sweet dreams and catastrophes.

“[Name]… go to sleep.” Kuroo groans. Putting the younger girl to sleep was always the hardest part of the night. She refused to sleep without doing something first or asking to stay up on guard duty with him.

“Tuck me in!” She lays down still, looking up at him with those puppy dog eyes. Gosh, he couldn't resist those eyes, it was impossible.

“Fine.” Kuroo places the blankets over her tired form. She snuggles against the warmth wrapping around her, she turns to the side to rest her head against Kenma’s back. It took awhile for her eyes to close before she finally fell asleep.

Kuroo lets out an exhausted sigh while going over to his spot to guard. He had his sword drawn out, ready to attack. He was always ready… always ready.

 _Gah! Nope stay awake!_ He slaps himself repeatedly, keeping his eyes and ears open in the darkness so no one would dare sneak up on them.

[Name] snuggling in deeper into Kenma’s back, slipping into a her new dreamworld.

***

She opens her eyes to finds herself hovering over her body. She has a momentary freak out and falls down next to her own body.

“What is this?” She whispers to herself, waving her hand over her sleeping body’s face. She looks up to find the rest of her team sleeping, her head turns around to see Kuroo watching over their sleeping forms. “Kuroo! Kuroo!” [Name] runs over to him, jumping up and down in front of him. He doesn’t notice her, he’s deeply concentrated on watching over his friends.

He can’t see me? She thinks, when she notices a bright light in the distance. She takes one last look at Kuroo before walking off to follow the light.

It turns out she also didn’t follow the laws of physics in this form? She just walked straight through a tree and she was completely fine. 100% unscratched. The closer to the light she gets, the loud squeaky voice get. Passing through one more branch she finds herself in a different place.

“Where am I?” She looks around at her surrounds. It wasn’t night anymore, and this place had bright vivid colors. Trees and all different kinds of flowers and plants grew all over the place. Tint yellow lights flew around in the air along with those squeaky whispers.

“She has arrived!” The small people around her whisper. Taking a better look at them, [Name] gasps. They’re fairies! Just like the ones Oikawa would always tell stories about! They’re so tiny and cute! [Name] smiles reaching out to touch one; at first they were a bit scared of her, but once they realized that [Name] meant them no harm, they swarmed around her like moths to a light.

“She’s so beautiful!”

“Very beautiful!”

“Mother only picks the best!” They cry out in joy, flying all around her, some hugging her cheeks and leaving kisses on her skin. [Name] giggles, she was clearly enjoying the attention she was receiving from these cute woodland creatures. Oh Oikawa was going to be so jealous of her!

“Can you guys tell me where I am?” [Name] asks, holding a small fairy on the palm of her hand, suddenly all the fairies slightly fight to receive a spot on top of her hands, shoulders and head. It was a funny sight for the girl, the only problem was all this glittery dust getting all over the place.

“Oh darling, you have arrived.” The gentle woman’s voice says from behind. [Name] looks back to see this gorgeous dark-skinned woman who radiates maternity. She wears a long white dress, her light green hair— which reached down to her hips— had green leaves and flowers intertwined within her locks, she wore a flower crown made of red roses and black roses. She walks towards the girl, the fairies quickly get off of [Name] and fly back to their tiny homes in the trees and bushes.

The dark-skinned woman chuckles, her captivating brown eyes meet [Name]’s eyes. Her breath catches at the sight of this beautiful woman.

“May I know who you are?”

“I thought my precious [Name] would know who I am. You enjoy spending time in my domain after all.” The woman teases her, [Name] just stands there gawking, she couldn’t believe that this insanely perfect woman knew her name!

“I-I don’t know…” [Name] feels bad for not knowing her name, it

“Oh well, I shall tell you anyways, many call me Mother Nature. Maybe now you know who I am?”

“Mother Nature…” The girl can’t believe it, she’s actually talking to Mother Nature, the one and the only. She closes her mouth but a few seconds later it drops open again. The woman laughs bringing [Name] into a hug.

“You can just called me Mother.” Now it was [Name]’s turn to laugh and to wrap her arms around Mother Nature’s torso. “That reminds me! I have a present for you.” Mother lets go of her to search through a berry bush for something.

“For me?” [Name] tilts her head to the side. Now she feels bad again, she didn’t bring anything for her…

“Here is your crown, my dear.” Mother turns back to [Name], placing a flower crown made of Chrysanthemums and Peace lilies on top of [Name]’s head. “What do you think of them?” She smiles down at [Name], her motherly smile makes [Name] feel a hundred times better on the inside.

“I think they’re beautiful…” [Name] hands reach up to gently touch the flowers in her hair.

“Do you know their meanings?” Mother Nature asks, caressing [Name]’s flustered cheeks.

“I only know Chrysanthemums mean life and rebirth.” [Name] answers. Mother Nature nods her head approvingly.

“The peace lilies also symbolizes rebirth, as well as innocent and purity after death.” At the mention of death, [Name] starts to panic, was she dead? She couldn’t be! She was just asleep… that’s right… she was just sleeping and this was a dream! Mother notices the worry on [Name]’s face and quickly adds more to her sentence. “You’re not dead, my dear. For it is I, who has died.”

Now [Name] was even more confused.

“How could you be dead, Mother?” [Name] asks. Mother let’s out a sad sigh, she raises her hands up and two tree stumps appear from the ground. Mother signals to [Name] to take a seat, so that’s exactly what [Name] does.

Mother sits down and sighs again. She doesn’t know where to start her story, for it is a very long one, a brutally long one. “Mankind wasn’t always so cruel to me. They treated the Earth as if it were their own home. Eventually times changed and so did humanity.”

[Name] slowly nods in understanding. Mother buries her face in her hands letting out a frustrated breath. The more Mother thought about everything, the more she got angry, but anger was never a good thing with Mother Nature, it never made the situation better. So counting to ten and taking deep breaths, she continued on with her story.

“As of the 21st century. Humanity has turned to the worst. Wars, weapons of mass destruction, littering, the destruction of forests, the over-hunting of animals. The last war was the last straw. I’m barely able to regenerate the affected areas, the thing that saved me from completely dying out are the few areas that weren’t hit as hard, and you.”

“Me?” [Name] asks, she didn’t know how she was one of the causes that kept Mother alive. She was a human, part of the species that destroyed her planet.

“You don’t know it yet and I have been forbidden from speaking too much; but you are my heir, you are the rebirth of Earth.”

“Save us [Name]! Save us! Save us! Save us!”

“[Name] you are our last hope. You must save us.”

“But how?” [Name] bursts into tears, she was so confused and frustrated. She could barely help her teammates, how could she save Mother Earth and all her creatures?

Mother plants a kiss on [Name]’s forehead, it caused a rush of warmth to spread throughout her body. It relaxed her, make her muscles lose all previous tensions they contained.

“Hush my dear, when the time comes, you shall know.”

“When will that be?”

“I cannot tell you, just know that we will meet again. I love you my dear, child. Go now, go back to your friends for they call your name. They need you now.” Mother starts to turn transparent as well as for everything in this paradise. [Name] wants to cry again, her hand reaching out to grab Mother Nature but her image just slips through her fingers. Darkness covers her eyes again.

***

“[Name]... [Name]...”  She hears a voice calling out her name and shaking her body. [Name] groans but opens her eyes to meet Ushijima. “[Name]. It’s your time to guard.”

She sits up and rubs her eyes, it was time to guard already? It felt like she only slept for five minutes.

“Okay Ushiwaka…” She yawns. Ushijima just grunts and replaces her spot in bed. [Name] grabs her ax and sits under the tree. She watches as Ushijima falls asleep, her eyes soon drift off to look at the clear path only to find a bush covering. She was confused, so she gets up and walks over to the bush,

 _Was this bush always here?_ She wondered, but the sight of juicy and plump berries on it derailed her worry, she immediately went to pick the good ones out, once all the boys woke up she’d serve them some delicious berries for breakfast!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here goes the flower symbolism. I love flower symbolism so much so I was like "why not put some in my writing?" so here it is.  
> I won't always say what the meaning of a flower is, I'll leave that up to the reader to look up. I'm not just giving it to you because I'm lazy but looking it up can make you see more things than I could explain, so in the end you learn more! Yay for learning!


	5. The Muse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Name] writes a story and a Goddess causes trouble for Kuroo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kuroo has a potty mouth. Just sayin'

“[Name]? What are you doing?” Bokuto asks, leaning over to see what the small girl was engraving into the dirt. [Name] jumps a bit, startled by owl boy’s abrupt appearance. She quickly covers up her writing with a sweater before turning around to talk to Bokuto.

“Bokuto! Don’t look! I’m writing a bedtime story for you guys!” [Name] pouts, crossing her arms against her chest. Bokuto raises his hands up defensively, not wanting the girl to start hitting him with her small fists.

“Sorry, sorry! What’s your story about?” He asks an innocent question; [Name] would usually forget about her previous annoyance when people changed the subject. He crossed his fingers and hoped it still worked. [Name] looks at him with scrutiny in her eyes, but her expression changes quickly, a bright and cheerful smile spreads across her face instead.

“I can’t tell you what it’s about right now, but you’ll find out later at night when I read the story out to all of you guys!” [Name] wraps her arms around herself, squealing in joy when thoughts of how proud everyone would be of her writing skills when they hear her story. She was so excited, she couldn’t wait to see their reactions.

Before Bokuto could ask anymore questions, [Name] pushes him back to the rest of the group, who were all playing a game of red light green light— so far Kenma was winning— Bokuto looks back at [Name], she was sitting on the ground again writing more things into the dirt with a small stick. It looked like she was having fun giggling to herself, he figured she’d be alright so he left her alone.

“What’s [Name] doing?” Kuroo asks, he was panting from all the running.

“She says she’s writing us a story.”

“What’s it about?”

“I have no idea. She says she’ll read it to us later tonight, so we just have to wait.” Taking one last look at her, both boys just shrug, returning back to start a new game of red light green light. They’d just wait till night to hear [Name]’s story.

***

“Gather around!” [Name] shouts, pushing all the boys to sit down in their pile of blankets. [Name] was feeling giddy at the moment, to her it felt like they were having a camping sleepover. Kuroo chuckles, laying down on his side, resting his head on his propped up arm. [Name] looks around to see where she could sit.

Kenma was laying across Iwa and Oikawa’s laps, Bokuto was tucked into his blankets with a goofy grin on his face— he was also feeling giddy to hear this story— so that left Ushijima’s lap available, so there [Name] took her seat. Kuroo internally groans a bit, he was jealous seeing the way [Name] and Wakatoshi interacted with each other, oh he was so jealous.

[Name] coughs to grab everybody’s attention. When she’s sure that all eyes are focused on her, she puts entwines her hands together and puts them on her lap to start telling her story.

“Long ago, there were nine gorgeous goddesses known as the Nine Muses. They each went to man and showed them inspiration for the subjects they each individually mastered. Calliope, muse of epic poetry; Clio, muse of history; Erato, muse of love poetry; Euterpe, muse of music; Polyhymnia, muse of sacred poetry; Terpsichore, muse of dance; Thalia, muse of comedy; Urania, muse of astronomy; and finally, Melpomene, muse of tragedy. Altogether these women—”

[Name] continued on telling her story, Kuroo found his eyes slowly closing with every word [Name] said, he’d try to snap out of his sleepy state to listen to [Name]’s story, he knew she would be very upset if he fell asleep on her like this.

But alas, his body refused to stay up any longer, his body slowly activated sleeping mode and Kuroo found himself completely laid out on a blanket, his ears still registering [Name]’s sweet and soothing voice, lulling him into dreamworld.

***

A bright light shines in Kuroo’s eyes, he groans out mumbling something like “I don’t have school today, mom. Let me sleep in longer.”

“Boy I am not your mother.” A unfamiliar and loud voice says, the power the voice contained caused the floor to rumble, making Kuroo shoot up wide awake and alert. His hands went searching the floor for his sword, an instinct he’s developed.

Cat-like eyes scan this plan white scene. The voice that boomed out belonged to a woman who sat in mid air, she had puffy curly hair and golden eyes.

“Who are you?” Kuroo asks, keeping his distance away from this strange lady.

“The name is Melpomene, I am one of the nine Muses.” She speaks, pride slipping slipping off her tongue and into her sentence. Kuroo thinks back to the story [Name] was reading, what did this one master again? Was it astronomy? History? Fuck he forgot, it was something he couldn’t remember. “I’m the muse of tragedy.” Ah there it was, Kuroo was close enough.

“So um… you mind telling me where I am and what I’m doing here?” Kuroo scratches the back of his head, looking around the plain white space in awkwardness. Melpomene groans.

“You’re in the presence of a Goddess and this is how you act? Rude. And I brought you here because I needed to tell you something.” Melpomene crosses her arms across her chest and turns her head away from Kuroo.

“Tell me then, I have places to be.” Kuroo picks at some food stuck in his teeth. Melpomene grimaces in disgust, humans have no manners at all! What a bunch of barbarians!

“Ugh! Fine! Kuroo Tetsurou, future bearer of the element of fire, I’ve been sent here by my Father to tell you that you’re nothing more than a character stuck in a tragedy. The stage lights shine brightly upon you, and you have no idea what plans your writer has set for you and your crew.”

“What?” Kuroo tilts his head to the side. He what did he eat before he went to sleep? Did he accidentally eat some of Bokuto’s Mary Jane? God, he didn’t want to know what it was if it made him have trippy dreams like this.

“Kuroo. You are

“I get it, this is just a dream. All of this is just some bad nightmare.”

“Dear lord.” Melpomene mutters, looking at Kuroo with exasperation. This human was getting on her nerves. She’s never dealt with a non-believer before, all the people she’s appeared to always understood her and took her advice. “Please listen closely. You’re part of a sick cruel play.”

“I already knew that.” Kuroo frowned, crossing his arms. Was that all that the Gods wanted to tell him? He already fucking knew it the minute the first Little Boy was dropped in Japan. Well aren’t the Gods living up to their name? Almighty omniscient shits.

“You don’t understand, the worse has yet to come”

“Oh I’m sure things can’t get any worse than this.” He mutters, sitting down on the ground. The Goddess in front of him stares at him with wide eyes.

“Child, don’t say such reckless things. You’ll be angering the Gods and Goddesses, and they’re not the type of omniscient beings that you want to anger.”

“You know what, Mel? I don’t give a fuck. I honestly do not give a single fuck about the Gods or the Goddesses. They’ve already made my life a living Hell. I want nothing more than to cut each and every single one of your throats. You people think you’re so fucking high and superior, I’ll fucking show all of you that I’m not some toy to be played with until broken.”

Kuroo punches the ground while sending the Muse of Tragedy a glare. Melpomene stares at him with her mouth open. He really was a strange one, never once has a human cursed the Gods and lived. She keeps looking around, waiting for that lighting to appear to strike Kuroo. It never appears.

It seems that the Gods and Goddesses must have decided to keep the boy alive… for now. With the way they work, they probably won’t even kill him, but they’ll put an obstacle in his way that will throw him off course.

Melpomene looks down at the disappearing watch on her wrist. She didn’t have much time, she had to tell him the rest before he woke up.

“Just remember Kuroo, you and that girl you love so much are the star-crossed lovers, and tragedies _die_ for star-crossed lovers.”

“I still don’t get what you’re trying to get at.” Kuroo mutters, she was using way too many metaphors for him, he didn’t have time to think about them. Melpomene releases a frustrated sigh, her fingers pressed up against her head to massage her temples, easing the migraine forming.

“What I’m trying to say is, no matter what you do, no matter what path you take, in the end only one of you will survive. It will either be you, or your girl.” Kuroo’s vision goes blurry on-and-off, small black dots filling up his vision. “You’re starting to wake up. So young hero, show me a tragedy worthy of being passed down to the future generations.”

“Wait!”

“Until later, Kuroo Tetsurou.”

***

“What the fuck…” Kuroo mumbles, his eyes opening open to stare at the gray sky above. He tries to sit up but instead he finds that he can’t move the left side of his body. Panic starts to flood through his veins, but doesn’t spread when he looks down to see a sleeping [Name] lying on top of him.

“Now would you look at that? Hey guys! Sleeping beauty just woke up! How cute!” Bokuto’s voice and laugh rings around in Kuroo’s ears. Kuroo groans and brings the blankets up to cover up himself and [Name].

“Shut up.” Kuroo mutters as he pulls the blankets over his head. Bokuto started laughing hysterically until Oikawa comes along and pulls him away.

“Let’s leave the sleepy couple alone.” Oikawa snickers, Bokuto covers his own mouth to prevent himself from laughing anymore. The two go back to start making breakfast while Ushijima went hunting for some more food.

Kuroo yawns, bringing the small girl as close to his body as possible. He leans his head down a bit to plant a small kiss on her forehead. A small smile appears on her face as she snuggles her head into Kuroo’s neck. The boy smiles, closing his eyes and whispering something in her ear before he falls back asleep.

_“Don’t worry [Name], I’ll keep both of us alive, even if I have to personally kill each God out there.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I didn't post this chapter on Saturday, I got busy, the same thing goes for the next Chapter.  
> Fun Fact: I'm 100% sure the Muses don't tell people the future, but I thought it would be interesting to have the Muse of Tragedy to tell Kuroo that he basically fucked. I also feel like this story is like Character vs. God and Character vs Writer (Me) so it would be a nice way to break the 4th wall by doing it this way.


	6. The Body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Devil trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More potty mouth Kuroo.

Kuroo wonders around the woods for a bit, the receding ocean waves could be heard not far in the distance. He could already taste the salt in the air. Kuroo sighs, today seems like a good day to just go to the beach and swim all his troubles away.

When the sand meets the soles of Kuroo’s shoes, he begins to take off his shoes, socks, and sweater. While he took off his sweater, a pair of ugly gloves fell out of his pockets. He picks them up and places them inside his shoes. [Name] had given those gloves to him this morning, and he didn’t want to hurt her feeling— spearing her enough pain after bluntly calling the gloves ugly after they were placed in his hands— so he just put them in his pocket before leaving the camp.

Despite constant danger looming in every corner, Kuroo couldn’t help but pretend that he was some tourist checking out this oh-so-amazing beach that was a total tourist hotspot. He just wanted to pretend everything was fine and that he didn’t dream about some strange Goddess telling him that no matter what he did, either him or the love of his life would die for some sick tragic story.

Fuck this world. Fuck the sick freak who thought this was some funny prank. Just fuck everything that made this the outcome. Out of every fucking possibility in the world, they just had to go down the nuclear fallout path. Fucking god damn it.

“AHH!” Kuroo tilts his head back to let out the most anger-fueled scream he could possibly ever conjure. A couple of the mutated birds sitting about on the beach immediately fly away from the wrathful man.

“What a scream you did there. Have you ever considered a job as an actor? I’m pretty sure Hollywood is still running with all the cheesy bullshit it produces.” A new voice appears. Kuroo turns around, not bothering to replace his nasty scowl with a more neutral and less deadly look.

The blond haired stranger sat on a rock, a sardonic smile on his face. He had purple eyes and a… fishtail where his legs should be? Okay, now Kuroo was confused. Yeah sure, he knew the after effects of radiation and blah, blah, blah, the unlucky few still alive all experience some sort of mutation, but wow—  he’s never seen a human with a mutation like _this_!

“Whoa! You’re a—”

“A merman? Why yes I am. I get it quite often.” The blond boy mutters, remembering what that last girl was thinking about when he meet her in the water. “So what had you screaming in pure anger like that? Was it the stress of life? The Gods and Goddesses making life a living Hell? Maybe it’s got to do something with you and [Name]’s fate?”

Kuroo looks at the boy with shock. How did he know? Hell— how did he know [Name]?

“How did yo—”

“How did I know about [Name]? I’ve met her before right on this very same beach. I’d consider myself an… acquaintance. She might not remember me, but oh Father do I remember her.” The last part of the sentence makes Kuroo feel uncomfortable, not in a jealous way like when [Name] sat on Ushijima’s lap, but more like a wow-this-guy-might-be-a-creepy-pervert kind of way.

“Uh… I think I should be leaving now.” Kuroo backs away from the merman, he looks back for a few seconds to see where his shoes and socks were, but when Kuroo turned back around to face the merman, he was gone.

“Where you going, _friend_? Leaving so soon?” A voice whispers in his ear. In surprise, Kuroo twists his body around to punch the person who appeared behind him, but his fist was caught in a tight grasp by merman boy. “You haven’t even asked me for my name, it’s Lucifer by the way.”

“W-what?” Kuroo’s cat-like eyes look down to find that merboy wasn’t a merboy anymore? His fishtail was gone and replaced with two functioning human legs.

“Surprised? Kuroo, there’s still a lot of things in this world that you don’t know about yet.”

“How did you know my name?” Now Kuroo was utterly freaked out, his face goes from shocked back to his usual scrowl. He didn’t know who this asshole was, but he was going to teach him what happens when you mess with Kuroo Tetsurou.

Kuroo brings up his available hand to punch the stranger’s jaw. Right when his fist was about to make a connection, he finds the world flipping upside down, when his vision is done being all messed up, his back meets the sandy ground.

“You won’t be able to protect the people you love so how about I cut you a deal?” Lucifer sneers down at Kuroo. God, Kuroo just wanted to punch that shitty smile off the devil’s face.

“Don’t give me any of that ‘deal’ bullshit!” Kuroo shouts, he attempts to overpower the devil above him, but Lucifer doesn’t budge in the slightest bit, instead he just sighs while wrapping his cold fingers around Kuroo’s neck with a strong grip.

Kuroo’s eyes widened, he’s struggling to breath in some air. His hands wrap about Lucifer’s hand, scratching at his skin, but Lucifer doesn’t budge even when Kuroo rips some skin off. Lucifer let’s go of Kuroo’s neck and gets off of him to start speaking while Kuroo takes large intake of air.

“Now we’re going to talk like grown adults. I’m giving you an opportunity here, I won’t hurt your family, but I’ll make a deal with you. In exchange for your mortality, I’ll give you the power to protect them. As we speak, there’s a group of hunters going right for your group.”

Kuroo looks up at Lucifer to send him the nastiest glare he could master. Lucifer just brushes it off, going back to smirking at some unknown thing in the woods.

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

“My sin is Pride, and lying has never left a good taste in my mouth. I always tell the truth, it’s up to you whether you want to believe me or not. So what will you do Kuroo? Will you accept my offer and save the people you care about or will you turn it down and let them all die painful deaths?”

Kuroo tries getting up to attack Lucifer again; unfortunately, the devil swing his leg around in the air, kicking Kuroo right in the face. Kuroo falls back onto the ground, groaning loudly into his hands.

“Is this your way of saying no? I guess you really didn’t care about them, oh how sad. You really are a cruel human being.” Lucifer cries dramatically, a hand pressed up to his chest to show fake sympathy for the people about to die. He turns away from Kuroo to let out fake sobs.

Kuroo growls, his eye already swelling up to form a black eye later on. God damn, he didn’t know if Lucifer was telling the truth or not, but did he really want to take the chance and have his team die? No… he didn’t.

“No. I’ll do it, just… just give me the power to protect them.” Kuroo looks up to see Lucifer turn back around, a shit-eating grin on his handsome face.

“Oh? Did the hero have a change of heart?” Lucifer cackles, nearing Kuroo. The human boy sat on his knees, looking down at the ground with a glare. If it meant protecting them, he’d make a deal with every single devil in Hell.

“Let’s just get this done and over with.” Kuroo growls.

“Oho! That’s what I like to hear. You have moxie kid, that’s why I’ll give you the best element.” Lucifer moves behind Kuroo to lift up Kuroo’s dirty shirt. Lucifer hums, placing an icy hand over warm skin. At first, nothing happened and the bedhead was getting annoyed, he wanted to turn around to yell at Lucifer, but that plan dies when a searing pain appears. He felt like his back was on fire, the pain was too intense so he releases a lung-piercing scream.

“Hold on, just a bit longer.” Lucifer mutters, pressing his hand against Kuroo’s skin even harder. Kuroo on the other hand, was pounding the sand with fists, tears pouring down his face and some blood trickling down his chin from biting down on his lip too hard. “There it’s done.”

Lucifer pulls his hand away to see the mark he branded onto Kuroo’s skin. It was a triangle that pointed up. The devil smiles at the amazing work he did, patting himself on the back. Ha! He was truly amazing!

Kuroo stands up, he felt detached from his body. He stumbles around a bit until he leans against a tree. Lucifer walks up towards him with his hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts. Kuroo plants the palm of his hand on the surface of the tree’s trunk, as soon as his hand touches the bark, the tree is engulfed in flames.

“Holy shit!” Kuroo shouts, falling down on his butt and scooting far away from the burning tree. Lucifer bends over in laughter. “What kind of power did you give me?”

“The symbol I branded into your skin is the elemental symbol for fire. I gave you the power to burn anything you touch with you hands.” Lucifer keeps on laughing, wiping away the tears forming at the corners of his eyes.

“What?” Kuroo screams, pushing himself off from the ground and charging towards the mischievous boy in front of him.

“Whoa, whoa!” Lucifer shouts, jumping up into the air, hovering far above from Kuroo’s reach. “Do you really want to waste your time killing me, instead of killing the men currently marching towards you camp.”

Kuroo stops trying to reach for Lucifer, instead he looks into the woods in the direction that lead to his camp. “Show me the way.” He growls, Lucifer smirks, landing back onto the ground and into the woods with Kuroo following right behind him.

“Gladly.”

***

“Do it. Do it for them. If you don’t kill them then your family will die. Come on hero, show me what you’ve got.” Lucifer sneers. He and Kuroo had snuck up behind the attacking group. Currently they were staring at a sniper who had a clear shot of the camp.

Lucifer stands back to watch Kuroo’s first move; he’s got Kuroo trapped in his web and he can’t wait to see the entertainment he’ll bring. Kuroo slowly trudges towards the crouching sniper. The sniper was focused on the only girl in the camp, informing his pals of her.

Anger starts fueling up Kuroo’s veins. He wasn’t going to allow anyone to put their hands on [Name].

The sniper keeps focusing on the girl, figuring out the best way to kill out all the men in the camp and only leaving her alive. She would be worth a lot of the black market. So focused, he didn’t notice Kuroo until the bedhead kicked the sniper gun out of the way.

“What the fuck!” Is all the sniper manages to say before Kuroo grabs him but his jacket and engulfs him in fire. Screams fill the air, birds start flying in all different directions, disoriented by all the chaos happening down below.

The sound of ten more pairs of boots running to Kuroo’s spot is all Lucifer needs to snap his fingers, instead taking the form of a snake with blood red eyes. The devil slithers onto a tree and makes himself comfortable on a tree branch as he watches Kuroo be surrounded by a large group of men heavily armed and dressed with modern military clothing.

The leader of the group moves forward, raising his semiautomatic gun up and aiming it towards Kuroo’s head. The leader doesn’t even say anything to Kuroo before he fires his gun. Several bullets pass through Kuroo’s skull and exiting through the other side.

Kuroo stumbles a bit, but he doesn’t fall over. He raises his head up to stare the leader dead in the eyes. The group freaks out when they see Kuroo was still alive and kicking, those bullets had gone directly through his brain, he should be dead.

Kuroo jumps onto the leader, pressing his hands against the man’s face. He watches with sadistic pleasure as the skin on the man’s face slowly melts off, the painful screams the man unleashed were like a birthday present to Kuroo. He would kill and torture anyone who even dared thought of hurting his friends. These men were all going to pay.

The battle was short, none of them lasted a few minutes after Kuroo set them all on fire. He stood in the middle of the chaos. The air smelled of burning corpses and scorched human skin.

Lucifer returns back to his human form and jumps out of his hiding spot. He walks over to Kuroo, shit-eating grin present on his face. He slowly claps for the hero in front of him.

“Good job, Hero. You surely proved yourself out there.” Lucifer attempts to pat Kuroo’s shoulder, but Kuroo pushes his hand away, growling at the devil and walking away in the direction that lead to his camp.

“Shut up, and stop calling me ‘hero’. I fucking hate that nickname.” Kuroo mutters. Lucifer stands back watching Kuroo leave.

“That’s it Kuroo, show the Gods you won’t be messed with.” Lucifer whispers, his purple eyes watch in amusement as Kuroo’s form gets farther away until he completely disappears behind the cluster of trees. Lucifer chuckles, turning around and walking back to the beach where so many heroes found their own personal hell.

Kuroo stumbles around, his mind was on a rollercoaster that wasn’t even halfway done yet. He glares down at his glove-cladded gloves, the only things that didn’t burn when his hands touched them. Breaking down some branches, he hears the voices of his family.

“Kuroo! Where were you?” [Name] shouts the minute Kuroo walks back into camp. He can’t force himself to properly focus on anything, he still in shock at his newly discovered “power” or curse as he would eventually call it. “We heard screaming in the woods and saw smoke! We got so worried!”

[Name] stops right in front of Kuroo. Examining him from top to bottom. Her [Eye Color] eyes stop when on his hands when she see’s that he’s wearing the gloves she made him. [Name] gasps, a toothy grin breaking out on her face before she wraps her arms around Kuroo, buries her face in his chest and squeals loudly into the fabric of his sweater. “You’re wearing the gloves!”

Kuroo raises his dominate hand up to place it on top of [Name]’s head, he hesitates a bit but he eventually does it, leaving only a small space in between, fear was eating away at his heart. He couldn’t live if he hurt her.

“Y-yeah… I am…”

“I thought you said they were ugly!” [Name] pouts. Kuroo gives her a small and barely noticeable smile, pushing her face back into his chest.

“I guess I had a change of heart… I think they’re the greatest _gift_ I’ve ever received.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHH yes! Lucifer my homie (jk) but srsly, Kuroo wtf. Didn't ya mama ever tell ya to never make deals with the devil?  
> Fun Fact: I based Lucifer's character after this quote by Mike Carey: “They used to call the devil the father of lies. But for someone whose sin is meant to be pride, you'd think that lying would leave something of a sour taste. So my theory is that when the devil wants to get something out of you, he doesn't lie at all. He tells you the exact, literal truth. And he lets you find your own way to hell.” Omfg yes, I love this quote idk why, I just do.


	7. Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah summer, the best time to plant seeds in radiation-infected soil.

Summer was here, the air was humid and hot, everything felt disgusting but it was a great time to start planting fruits and vegetables.

[Name] hums, carrying a pile of seeds in her sweater pocket. Today was a nice day, for once the sun slightly broke through the grey clouds and revealed some nice blue hiding behind all the gloom.

“What a nice day to plant!” [Name] shouts in glee, kneeling down next to Kenma. The pudding head just signs, digging his knife deeper into the moist dirt to make some room for the seeds. “Thanks again for helping me!”

“I couldn’t refuse when you were nearly in tears after Kuroo said he wouldn’t help.”

[Name] starts to awkwardly laugh, trying to push away what Kenma just said. She wasn’t crying, okay? She just had dust in her eyes when she was asking Kenma, and it just so happened it had to be right after Kuroo said no to gardening with her.

“I was not crying because of Kuroo. Kuroo’s just the biggest meanie in the world and to be honest— with those bear hands of his, he’d be terrible at gardening. So really, I didn’t want his help.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” Kenma mutters, opening his hand up for [Name] to hand him some seeds. [Name] quickly pulls out a couple of seeds from her pocket and puts them into Kenma’s hand.

“How long should it take for these things to grow?”

“Not too long, surprisingly the radiation did something to the dirt that makes plants grow faster. Bad thing? Possibly, but that’s something to be worried about later when we get to that bridge.”

“We’ll worry about it when we’re dying from radiation poisoning. Right now, let’s just plant ourselves future food.” Kenma says, started to dig up another hole while [Name] patted down some dirt on top of hole filled with seeds.

Digging holes, planting seeds, patting down the dirt. The routine went on for about half an hour before Kenma puts his knife down and stood up to stretch his tensed up muscles.

“I’ll be right back. I’m going to go to the bathroom and I’ll bring us back some water.”

“‘kay!” [Name] waves Knema off, the pudding head runs in the direction of camp. [Name] hums while picking up Kenma’s abandon knife and playing around with it. “This is fun!” [Name] laughs, throwing the knife up into the air and attempting to grab it; unfortunately, it doesn’t work out the way she wished it did.

Gravity brings the knife back down, but [Name]’s hand was in the way. The blade passes next to her hand, but it still manages to inflect a rather large cut on the side of her hand.

“Shit!” [Name] cries out, clutching her bloody hand against her chest, but it doesn’t stop the blood from leaking through her fingers and onto one of the recently planted seed beds.

Her hot tears rushed down her cheeks, the pain was too much, but she opens her eyes when she feels something poking at her foot.

Where some of the seeds had been planted, a small bush was already growing, and growing fast the more of [Name]’s blood dripped onto its soil.

“Whoa…” [Name] stares at the bush with astonishment once it was fully grown with ripe berries already growing from it’s tiny branches. She stares at her hand, then back at the bush, then back at her hand. Maybe? Maybe…

She kneels over all the other spots where the seeds had been planted and drop some blood over them. If her theory proved right then they should grow, and sure enough— her theory was indeed correct.

More bushes with ripe berries and fruits grown on them were popping up in all the places she dripped some of her blood. Her mouth watered at the sight of all these delicious and sweet-smiling fruits all around her.

“Oh happy day!” [Name] immediately digs more holes and planted more seeds, then drips some of her blood over them, more bushes grew. She walked over to some small flower buds and dripped some blood over those, and sure enough, those flowers quickly grew and bloomed.

But with the more blood she released, the more pale and tired she grew, until she finally collapsed under an old willow tree nearby. Black dots filled up her vision, she could hear voices fill her ears, even though nobody was near. Everything felt to dream-like, even the tree she laid under was patting her head with a branch.

“Mr. Tree? Are you alive?” [Name] asks, looking up at the tree with with the lights in her eyes dying out.

“Here human, eat some of my fruits.” The tree’s branch reached up into it’s leaves, picking some apples and handing them over to [Name]. Her pale and sickly hand reaches up and grabs the apples.

“Thank you Mr. Tree.” She says before taking a huge bit out of the apple, almost immediately, her pale skin turned rosy and healthy again. The cut on her hand stopped bleeding and healed up, leaving only a small scar. “I feel… so much better!”

She eats the rest of the apple, it caused waves of sweetness to burst over her tastebuds. She’s never had an apple this delicious before.

“Your full powers have yet to fully awaken. Please do not over exert yourself until the time comes.” The tree says, [Name] looks at the willow with confusion etched on her face. What did the tree mean ‘powers’?

“What do you m—” She’s cut off before she’s able to finish her sentence.

“[Name]!” She heard Kenma’s familiar voice call out her name. She looks away from the willow tree to call out to Kenma, in a few seconds, he pops through some of the thick bushes, rushing to [Name]’s side. “Why did you leave? I saw the blood on the knife and I got worried!”

Normally, Kenma doesn’t get so visibly upset, so the face that he was openly showing he was worried made her heart warm up. Aw, Kenma really cared about her.

“I uh… saw some leaves over here and stopped the bleeding.” She shows the closed up cut on her hand. Kenma scans her hand with concern before pulling her back up onto her feet.

“Come on, let’s just go pick these fruits and berries, you weren’t lying when you said the radiation had a big effect on the dirt… I just never thought they would grow this fast.” He mutters the last part, walking off to some nearby bushes with the most berries.

“What a funny looking human.” The tree says, causing [Name] to laugh loudly.

“What is it?” Kenma asks, he doesn’t bother turning around as he was too busy picking all the fruits and berries on the bushes.

“Heh… it’s nothing.” [Name] takes one last look at the old willow tree with a smile on her face and a wave, before running back with Kenma to help him berry pick.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish it was summer, it feels like spring here like wtf. I live in Chicago, there should be snow on the ground and kids eating yellow snow. Wtf is happening to this world? *Coughs* Okay, back to the story... you fucked up, that's what happened, those things you think are harmless berries might be the new kind of drug in this AU, who knows? Is this story truly a dark fantasy or really a story about kids high on drugs? Comment if you find the secret message in this story. I'll give you $20.
> 
> Fun Fact: I was sitting under a willow tree when I was writing this. Another fun fact, I was high on LSD (just kiddin'. Don't do drugs kids, let drugs do you), but no srsly when you lose a lot of blood you start seeing CRAZY SHIT. True story, back when I was like 6 I would have contant nosebleeds and one time my nose just WOULDN'T stop bleeding and I saw Jesus wearing sunglasses and he was like "yo homie, you gonna be fine, dawg." then I nearly died and I had to be hospitalized for a few days. Scary shit I tell you.


	8. Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paradise Lost

“Why are we moving again?” [Name] whines in Kuroo’s arms. Earlier in the morning when she had been informed that they would be moving again, she had firmly planted her butt on a fallen over tree trunk. Surprisingly, it had taken Iwaizumi ten minutes to pull the girl away from the tree. How she got so strong, none of the boys knew.

“We’re moving because the sea is bringing us more danger.”

“What do you mean? Out of all the months we’ve been here, we haven’t been in any danger other than that one kid who stole our stuff, but you took care of him!” [Name] shouts, raising her fist up in the air— almost accidentally hitting Kuroo in the face, to which he wasn’t too happy about— and squirming about in his arms.

Kuroo stiffens up, which doesn’t go unnoticed by the girl in his arms. His thoughts race back to the day he acquired his fire power and took out that group closing in on him team.

“What's wrong, Kuroo?” [Name] looks up at Kuroo, from her point of view, his face was upside down. He looks down at her, a tiny and barely notice smile on his lips, he leans down to plant a sloppy kiss on her forehead. “Oh gross!”

She feveriously tries to wipe away the saliva on her forehead. Kuroo chuckles, continuing to carry the girl through the mountains. They had stopped half an hour ago to rest, they had been walking the majority of the day, and they wanted to rest before someone accidently stumbled off the edge.

“We’re almost there.” Kuroo announces as he looks to the top. Hopefully the top of the mountain had fruits and animals around, they were starving, but they wouldn’t stop and make camp until the reached the top.

There is a collective sigh of relief from everybody when Kuroo says that. They were also so tired from traveling, they just wanted to fall down here and sleep for 20 years. After making sure everybody had ate some food and drank water, Kuroo started trekking back up the mountain, with [Name] on his back this time.

***

Finally they reached the top, at first they expected to see a snowy and empty place, but their jaws dropped when they were instead met a warm place, with a giant spring in the middle— that had one of those fancy fountains in the middle, like at those fancy hotels—, waterfalls here and there, then walls made of mirrors behind on of the waterfalls. Everything looked so clean and sparkly.

“How did this place survive the Little Boys?” Iwaizumi asks, taking a look at his reflection in one of the far away mirror. Oh god, did they really look like this? They looked so old… they no longer looked like their good-looking past selves.

“Who cares! I’m taking a swim in that spring! It’s got my name written all over it!” [Name] jumps off Kuroo’s back, running to the sparkling spring while stripping herself out of all her clothes till she was only left in her birthday suit.

When she wasn’t too far or too close, she jumping into the air and brings her knees up to her chest to cannonball into the clear blue water. The water engulfs her, it felt to great on her skin, way better than the ocean water. She did twirls under the water, feeling all this energy enter her. She felt young again like this, something she hasn’t fully felt in years. Her lungs slowly started burning from the lack of oxygen, so she resurfaces.

Her hair covered up her face, which caused her to go in a fit of giggles and pushed her hair out of the way. Rubbing her eyes from an excess water, she opens her eyes to find her friends staring at her with her with their mouths agape.

She tilts her head to the side in confusion. What was wrong? Was it because she was naked? Well… after all these year they should have gotten used to it. Maybe there was something on her face?

“What’s wrong?” She asks.

“Y-you… you look like you’re 16 again…” Kuroo managed to say, he stumbles over him words a bit. Oikawa pulls [Name] out of the spring and brings her to one of the mirrors near the waterfall, and sure enough, she really did look 16.

She gasps, taking a good look at her reflection. Touching her face, and everything. All her small wrinkles disappeared, her body wasn’t as mature as it had been, she looked exactly like she did when she was in High School. She wasn’t in her late 20’s anymore… she was 16 again.

The other boys rushed in getting their clothes off and jumping into the spring. They fully submerged themselves, but resurfaced when the need for air became necessary. [Name] gasps when she looks at them. They looked like they were 18 again, no longer in their early 30’s, late 20’s for Kenma.

“Are we… are we really teens again?” Oikawa rushes over to the mirror, examining his once-again young and handsome face. Everyone gathers around the mirrors, examining themselves as well. Nobody could believe this… was this real?

“Who know’s how long we’ll be like this, so how about we enjoy this short time, like kids again.” Bokuto speaks up, sending everyone a smile. He was right, they didn’t know if this would last or how long it would last. So why not enjoy it?

An afternoon of fun and excitement begins. More swimming in the spring, jumping off the waterfall edge and into the water below. Playing Marco Polo, pushing each other off each others shoulders and into the water. Everything felt right, just like when they discovered the ocean.

“Oo! Kuroo when did ya get that tattoo?” [Name] says with a drawl, her fingers tracing the triangle mark on his lower back. Kuroo shivers as her finger slowly traces the lines. Bokuto snickers when he witnesses the scene. The owl boy sends Kuroo a suggestive look, while Kuroo sends him a glare.

“I ah… got it from some guys I met while I was hunting one day.” Kuroo’s response was awkward and forced, he just hoped [Name] would leave it at that and not question him even more— especially when it was known that Kuroo never trusted people outside of the group. He wouldn’t let any random guys give him a random tattoo. It was too out of character for him.

Thankfully [Name] had reverted back to her childish personality, she just hums and skips off to bother Ushijima. Kuroo let’s out a relief sigh; that was close, _too_ close.

The day eventually turned to night. It took two bedtime stories to put [Name] to sleep; now her childish personality matched her age. When he’s sure that she’s fast asleep, Kuroo slips under the blankets, pulling her against. him. Everyone else was fast asleep as well, no one was guarding tonight when they were in paradise.

“Good night, [Name].” He whispers, planting a kiss on her forehead and falling asleep, silently hoping that Eden would still be here waiting for them in the morning.

***

“Where did it go…?” [Name] says, looking around at the empty mountaintop. After waking up, the group found that the mountain paradise they found was gone. There were no more mirrors, or waterfalls, or springs of youth. It was just them and the cold mountain air.

“We’re still young.” Iwaizumi points out. That was true, they all still looked like they were in their teens. “Maybe this was a second chance at youth?”

“Hebe.” Kenma says.

“Hebe?” [Name] repeats what Kenma said.

“Hebe, greek Goddess of Youth. It sounds weird, but she appeared in my dream, and she told me this was a part of the story? Whatever that means.”

Kuroo feels himself stiffen up. Another Goddess? What did these omniscient beings want with him and his friends? This must be some other curse they’d all have to bear. Oikawa notices Kuroo all stiff and scared-looking, he just assume Kuroo was nervous about being a teen again.

“Lighten up, Tetsu-chan! Now you can confess like you wanted to back in High School.” Oikawa nudges Kuroo towards [Name]. Kuroo growls at Oikawa; the downside of being so young again, is that his face didn’t have that same scariness that it used to have when he was older. Oh darn.

Ushijima walks around the mountaintop, also not feeling very trust worthy of this “Goddess” that came to Kenma during his sleep. It felt very suspicious, like something wasn’t right. There was a piece of the puzzle missing, like what kind of Goddess just comes and gives people their youth again without something in return?

Something was going on, and Ushijima was going to figure it out. His dark olive eyes scan all over the place, trying to make sure there weren’t people hiding and waiting to ambush them. His eyes make eye contact with Kuroo’s. They both nod, in a sense telepathically communicating with each other.

_They were going to get to the bottom of this. For the safety of the group._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who else thought that everyone was "young and good looking"? I fucking did that on purpose. I never told you their ages, but [Name] and Kenma were like in their late 20's (28-29) and then everybody else were in their early 30's (30-32). I used words like "Child". "boy(s)" and "girl" in past chapters to make them SEEM young but in reality they were older than I made them seem. HA.
> 
> Fun Fact: I'm a piece of shit.


	9. Snowflakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tragedy loved star-crossed lovers, but nothing satisfied a tragedy more than the death of one or both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tw: Gore.  
> I feel like I get a bit more descriptive with the gore here, so beware.

“It’s great being young again.” [Name] hums, skipping down the broken up road. A couple of cars were spaced out down the long road, some crashed into each other, others down in ditches with skeletons sitting in the front seats, others just sat there, as if the owners just got out and ran away into the wild forest the surrounded both sides.

A insync hum of agreement filled the air. They continued to walk down the road until the hear the distant sound of a roaring car engine getting near. Kuroo pushes everyone into the woods, making every lie down on their stomachs as they hid behind a couple of thick bushes.

A truck full of howling and yelling men holding their guns high in the air passes by, the flag of their nation flapping along in the wind. They were shirtless and covered in mud and dried up blood. In between the men in the back, were women and children tied up with barb wire digging deep into their skin. The light was good enough that [Name] could see the tears streaming down their faces. The car passes and Kuroo signals for them to get up, but they don’t continue walking on the road, instead they go back to traveling through the woods— like they were used to.

“I wish I could have helped those women and children.” [Name] says, her words laced with guilt and sadness. Iwaizumi gently pats her head, but Kuroo sighs irritably.

“But you couldn’t unless you wanted to end up like them, or worse, get shot down on sight.” His words are cold, but he only says this because he wanted [Name] to understand that she couldn’t always be a hero, she had to think about herself every once in awhile rather than other people.

“Hmp!” [Name] pouts angrily, turning away from the bedhead. In her mind, she made it official that she would ignore Kuroo until he apologized or until she didn’t feel so mad at him— which it didn’t take so long for her to forgive someone even if they didn’t apologize.

During the walk, there were many times where Kuroo tried talking to her, but she just gave him the cold shoulder, occasionally trying to send him a cold glare which only made Kuroo laugh and tease her about how adorable she was. Oh, how she wanted to shove her ax somewhere where the sun don’t shine, that would show him not to mess with her.

“Hey look! A cabin!” Oikawa shouts with joy, stopping in his tracks to point at a cabin not too far from them; unfortunately for [Name]— who was walking right behind him— his sudden stop caused her to rough bump into his backside.

Kenma mutters a “Finally.” once Oikawa pointed out the cabin. Everyone was ready to go to it but [Name] speaks up before they could start moving.

“We shouldn’t…” [Name] stands back with a look of fright on her face, her eyes    locked with the flowers growing around.

“Why not?” Ushijima asks.

“Those are begonia flowers.” She points at the flowers she was staring at. “They mean ‘beware’ so I don’t think we should any farther.”

“Since when did you learn flower language?” Kuroo mutters, he was getting impatient, he wanted to find a place where they could all camp at for the night. The cabin looked empty and it’s been awhile since they’ve lived under a real roof. He wasn’t going to turn around just because of a couple of flowers growing around.

“I-I don’t know… but all I know is that we shouldn’t go there!” [Name] keeps trying to pull them away from the cabin, but Kuroo’s on his last nerve. He stomps over to the small girl, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder. If she wouldn’t walk, then he’d just carry her there. Nothing was wrong the cabin and he’d prove her childish worries wrong.

“Kuroo! Put me down!” She shouts, pounding on his back, but he doesn’t listen, he keeping on moving forward, his boot-clad feet stomping down on the warning flowers.

The rest follow behind, with Oikawa picking up [Name] abandoned ax and carrying it for her. The door to the cabin was unlocked, which made it 100 times easier for them. It would have been a pain to break a window for them to enter.

Kuroo puts [Name] down once they stepped into the cabin. It was dark and eerie inside. [Name] felt a sudden chill go down her spine, in reflex, her hands cover up her arms in an attempt to try and warm herself up.

“I still don’t think this is a good idea…” She says, only for her warning to fall upon deaf ears. Oikawa and Iwaizumi make themselves comfortable on a torn up couch, Kenma examines the TV, Kuroo went off somewhere else, while Bokuto and Ushijima went to check out the rooms in the cabin. She continued to stand at the door, occasionally staring outside to make sure no was was waiting there to ambush them.

They were all doomed if they were.

“[Name]-chan! Stop being such a worry-wart and come sit in my lap!” Oikawa rapidly pats his criss-crossed legs, hoping she would gladly accept his offer; but instead he’s rejected. [Name] takes a seat on the wooden coffee table. Her eyes concentrated on the trees outside.

Hours go by, the sky gets darker and everyone was sitting in the living room together. [Name]’s hands gripped her ax tightly, to the point where her knuckles turned white. Kuroo joked about how [Name] must be thinking of killing them. They laughed, but at that moment [Name] jumped up abruptly. The boys jumped in fear, holy shit they were so scared.

[Name] doesn’t turn back to look at them, instead she starts running to the door, opening it and running out of the cabin. After a small looked shared between the boys, they also grab their weapons and run after the girl. They noticed the light of a fire not too far from the cabin, they realised that was the direction where [Name] was headed. Running head-on into the danger zone.

“[Name]! Get back here!” Kuroo whispers in a harsh voice, but she doesn’t listen and she keeps on running, jumping behind a bush to hide once she got a good view of the fire. The rest of the gang join her, Kuroo grabs her wrist and tries pulling her, but her feet are firmly planted on the ground.

“Shush! Look!” [Name] points through the bush to show the men and woman sitting there. They stay quiet to listen in on the conversation the stranger group was having. The men were sharpening their knives, and the woman sat down on a fall tree trunk with a baby in her arms.

“We kill the baby and sell the parts to those cannibals. They pay good for baby meat.” The man who was talking looked like he was the leader, occasionally he looked back to look at the woman holding the baby. Her eyes looked dead, as if she died a long time ago and all that was left was an empty shell. “You ready, Juliet?”

The woman nods, standing up and placing the baby down on top of the tree trunk. The man walks over, he hugs the woman before letting go, so he could go on with the mission. The knife blade shines as the light of the fire hits it. [Name] watches with horror, was this really going to happen? Where these people really going to kill an innocent baby? And before she realises it, her body decides to move on it’s own accord.

“Stop them!” [Name] shouts, jumping out of the bushes to confront the group of people. They all stopped to stare at her, before they charged at her. She would have been dead meat if her friends hadn’t jumped out to protect her from the attacking men.

“[Name]! Get out of here!” Kuroo shouts, fighting back against one of the men. This moment reminded her of the time where another group had attacked them. She shakes her head in disagreement. She wasn’t leaving, she was going to fight alongside them.

All the men were fighting against each other, leaving the two females out. That’s when [Name] realized, the other woman was gone. She looked all around but there was no sight of her, but that’s when she sees a small form lying on the fallen tree trunk. She drops her ax and runs over, leaning over to look at the adorable little human.

[Name] stares down at the small baby girl in a bundle of torn and dirty sheets. Her tiny face was rosy, her eyes were closed. The poor thing was sleeping and didn’t even know what was happening around her, she didn’t even know that a few seconds later— if they hadn’t jumped in— she would have been killed and used as food.

“Huh?” [Name] reaches to touch her own cheeks when she feels something warm dripping down from her eyes and onto the small baby’s face. She was crying. Was this really what humanity has come down to? Reproducing was no longer for repopulating the world, instead to just sell off the child as a meal to primal beasts.

In the background, the sounds of weapons clashing, humans screaming and crying, and then that ultimate last gasp before death followed by that grunt of someone pulling their weapon away from the corpse.

“Give me that _thing_ back.” A woman’s voice says from right next to [Name], a cold metal presses up against [Name]’s neck. She was being held at knife point.

“Don’t fucking touch her!” [Name] screams, she’s seeing red and letting her anger control her. [Name]’s hand grips onto the woman’s wrist that held the knife. In a fluid motion, [Name] steps back, kicking her leg out to make the woman fall on her hand, then climbing ontop of the woman. The woman had let go of the knife during her fall, [Name] held it tightly in her hands when she suddenly feels a warm liquid splash over her hands and her clothes.

[Name]’s hyperventilating, her heart going 600 miles per hour, she feels her hair getting pulls by the woman she currently stood over with a knife deep in her stomach. The blood pounding through [Name]’s ear mask the blood-curling scream the woman underneath emits.

[Name]’s body has entered autopilot. Her hands and arms move on their own accord, pulling the knife out and raising up again before bringing it back down to penetrate the woman’s stomach again. The action keeps on repeating, more screams and cries are released from the woman’s lungs until the moment she release her last breath in the form of a whispered ‘help’.

Everyone had stopped to watch the carnage. It was until the woman whisper her last word, that a man from her group growled and charged toward [Name], his baseball bat held high, ready to swing down and crush her skull with the metal. Ah, but this revenge story was unfortunately cut short for the man.

He ran, but finds himself falling, he can’t feel his legs anymore and shock has taken over his body. He’s hesitant when his hands go searching for his legs, so it was a hilarious moment when the horror registers on his face that he no long was connected to his lower half. His death was not too fast, but not too slow, but all in all, in the end it was excruciatingly painful.

Kuroo stares down at the man, a cold look in his eyes. He couldn’t help but think of how funny this was, in a dark and twisted way. This dead man could have been him, and that dead woman could have been [Name]. This dead man loved that dead woman over there, love not written amongst the stars, but instead in the dirt where they wrote their names together in the middle of a drawn heart, and love held within the forming fetus in the woman’s womb. Tragedy loved star-crossed lovers, but nothing satisfied a tragedy more than the death of one or both of them.

Truly, this was an unfortunate way for their story to end.

Unlike the first time she killed someone, she doesn’t cry; [Name] just gets up from the dead woman and stumbles over to the crying baby lying on the tree. She sinks down to her knees in front of the child, picking up the baby girl and holding her in her arms.

“Shush, it’s okay now. I got you now, I’ll protect you from now on… I’ll never let anyone hurt you.” [Name] whispers in a hoarse voice. She chokes back tears from breaking out, it was hard, but when the baby in her arms stops crying and instead looks up at [Name] with twinkling eyes, a pure look of adoration.

Kuroo slowly walks over to [Name], he turns back to the group and signals to them to get rid of the corpses. Kenma gags when he’s put in charge of dragging the dead man’s lower half away. The sound organs slipping out and the sounds they produce. It caused his stomach to churn in disgust.

“Are you okay?” Kuroo asks [Name], kneeling down beside her, wrapping his arm around her shoulder. The normal glimmer in her eyes was gone, he noticed. [Name] just gives him a small nod and brings the baby closer to her chest.

“How old do you think she is?” She whispers, Kuroo almost didn’t hear her. He takes a look at the cooing baby, she was too big to be a newborn, but not big enough to be older than two years.

“I think she’s about a year and a half. Almost two.”

“What should we name her?”

“Huh?” Was she really thinking about keeping the baby? “You want to keep the baby?”

“Of course, she’s my baby now. I think I’m gonna name her Iris.”

“Are you sure? You know taking care of a baby is a lot of work? It’s not going to be easy.” Kuroo is trying his hardest to make [Name] think about her decision more. She turns her head to stare dead in his eyes. Her cold glare causes him to freeze in his spot.

“I said, I’m going to keep her.” Her voice is as equally cold as her glare. The, as fast as it appeared, her glare leaves and goes back to her normal gentle and warm expression, she looks back down at Iris.

The rest of the group returns from throwing the bodies somewhere far, they gather around [Name] to take a look at Iris, the newest addition to their family. [Name] wipes away some small tears appearing in the corners of Iris’ eyes.

Everything was dead silent, and it continued to be until white flakes started falling down from the sky, the air turning chilly along with the sudden appearance of the snowflakes.

“Snow?” Ushijima opens up his hands, watching as the cold crystals fall on his warm skin and melt within seconds of making contact. “How is this possible? We’re far from the north, it should be snowing down here.”

“Global warming?” Kuroo adds on.

Everyone looked at each other as the snow kept falling on them, the cold wasn’t something they wanted to experience right now when they didn’t have their coats on, so immediately they all made a dash for the cabin.

The baby in [Name]’s arms starts giggling when the snowflakes fall on her tiny face, her blue eyes opening up to see the sky and snow for the first time in her short life.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol u crazy. But ommmg I had fun writing this chapter. It was g8. I love turning those lovable and sweet characters into the complete opposite of their normal personality. I tried to used a lot of opposites in this chapter, like how Kuroo was like "I don't want her to be a hero for people" but then you come and totally fuck that bitch up, and you took her baby. Like damn, savage bruh. Freakin' savage.
> 
> Fun fact: Iris is a flower, the meaning is: "Faith; Hope"


	10. Silhouettes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter mainly focused on Kuroo

Kuroo should have learned his lesson on never walking off on his own after his last encounter with Lucifer; unfortunately, he did not learn his lesson, so here he was, walking in the woods.

He hums the tune of The Funeral March, staring up at the trees and losing himself in daydreams. The movie picture show of his mind went from him discovering a way to rid himself of this curse, to scenarios of how the world would somehow go back to normal, to what-if’s. What if the war never happened? He would have confessed to [Name]. What if he didn’t take up Lucifer’s offer? Well, then his team would be dead.  

Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice how the trees around him started turning darker. The shadows around him started developing human forms and stalking him deeper into the darker forest. It isn’t until Kuroo bumps into a tree, that he notices how far he went.

“God damn…” He mutters, preparing to turn around to go back the direction he came from; but when he looks back at all the trees, he can’t remember for the life of him which direction he came from.

“Kuroo.” The shadows around him whisper his name. His body enters the Fight-or-Flight mode, and his system chooses that flight would be the best option in this situation. He starts running down a random path and prays that this was the correct way to go. The shadows follow him, dancing and laughing like this was some sort of game.

His heart is pounding against his rib cage, sweat secreting from his pores and onto his clothes. The darkness is coming closer to him, the light is slowly disappearing, the whispers are getting closer and louder.

He sees a bright opening up ahead, he uses the rest of his energy to sprint towards it, he barely manages to make it when his foot trips over a tree root, he falls forward and rolls into the light. With a loud THUD, Kuroo falls flat on his back, he sits up and rubs his hand against his aching spine.

At first, he assumed he was safe here in the light, but his assumptions were wrong. It didn’t take long for the shadows to catch up to him, they covered up the sky, dancing around in the trees, singing songs and playing games.

Kuroo was cornered, nowhere to go and the shadows were closing in on him. As a desperate last attempt, he prepares to take off his gloves, but then it seems the heavens had sent him a savior.

“Tetsu!” The shadows stop moving, all turning to face the direction of the voice. The darkness the filled the woods slowly dissipated away as light started flooding in. The shadows screamed in pain, rushing away into the part of the woods where the light did not reach. “Tetsu!”

[Name] skipped through the woods with a small smile on her face, she swung her ax around like in her hand, when her eyes land on Kuroo— who was still situated on the floor with fear— her smile seems to brighten even more. The woods get brighter, and the screams get louder. “I found you, Tetsu!” She drops her ax on the ground so she could sit down on his lap and wrap her arms around his neck.

Kuroo uneasily chuckles, wrapping his arms tightly around [Name] waist, afraid that the shadows might pull her away from his grasp and into the darkness where he’d never see her ever again. [Name] on the other hand, didn’t notice Kuroo’s haunted demeanor, she just continues to nuzzle her face in his neck before getting up and pulling him along with her.

“Let’s go home.” [Name] sends him a smile, picking up her ax and pulling him away from back in the correct direction to camp.

Kuroo looks back at the shadows, he sees them moving around, but not getting close to them. It seemed like [Name] repelled them. Kuroo was so confused, what was it about her that frightened them? His cat-like eyes turn to look down at the cheerful girl, and that’s when it hits him.

She looks bright, like there was light radiating from within her soul. Her vibrant personality was dazzling, the smile on her face could put the sun to shame. They were scared of the light, those poor damned souls were too scared to look into the light, so they coward in the only place they knew— the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had been researching shadow people the last few weeks, and this was the topic for day 10 of the writing challege so I figured "why not?" so here I put them. 
> 
> I would also like to apologize to all of you who have been actively reading this series for not updating for almost an entire week, I'm really sorry. It was finals week at my school, so I had been busy studying for/doing my finals. On Thursday (the 17th) I took my last final of the semester and then I went off to spend half of my break at my dad's house, so these few days I have been out and about in Chicago with my dad and step-mom so I didn't really have any time to finish writing these stories. I would also like to apologize to the anon who sent me a message on tumblr asking me if I was going to update this series, I told them that I was going to post some chapters that day but at the end of the day, I didn't update shit, so anon if you read this then I am soooooooo sorry, please forgive me. I think that's all I have to mention, so yeah... I'll be going back to writing the rest of the chapters. 
> 
> Fun Fact: Aleks loves bearded dragons.


	11. Sickly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Send away all the other auditions, we have found the perfect one for the leading role.

“Achoo!” [Name] grumbles, wiping her runny nose with the sleeve of her sweater. She laid down on the dirty master bed, tucked under their pile of blankets. It was a good thing they had discovered this cabin when they did, so far it’s been a very helpful shelter.

Kuroo and Iris sat around the ill-fallen [Name]. Her eyes were closed, her face was red, and her breathing was coming out in ragged puffs. She was burning up, and her body felt like lead. It was a strange kind of pain that made her want to die. She cracks open her eyes a bit to stare at Iris and Kuroo, her eyes follow the angels and demons standing behind them, mumbling about life or death.

Both groups stared at her with impassive expressions on their beautiful faces. It should be a sin to be that beautiful. [Name] closes her eyes against, not wanting to look at them any longer, not wanting to hear their loud murmurs in her ears.

_The Gods have decided that her part in the play hasn’t been completed yet, death is not written in her script._

_What about the boy? He’s fallen under the curse._

_We can’t do anything about the boy, his soul is in the hands of the Dragon. He cannot die by natural causes or by anyone’s hand, that includes us._

Their arguing gets louder, every word mentioned about her and Kuroo sounded like nails being dragged down a blackboard. She didn’t want to hear it, neither one of them was going to die and this was all just a bad illusion caused by her high fever.

“Is mommy going to be okay?” Iris asks, looking at [Name] with her big eyes full of worry. The small girl kneels down beside [Name] and rests her head on top of [Name]’s stomach, causing the older girl to giggle. Iris was intentionally making [Name] forget about the bad hallucinations.

“If we keep feeding her this mutant duck soup, she’ll be fine.” Kuroo’s voice fills her ears. It’s a smooth and deep, it masks up the background noise of the arguing angels and demons. Her hand seeks out his in the darkness. A tiny smile appears on [Name]’s face when the feeling of a large calloused hand closes around her smaller one.

The visions have disappeared, the voices are gone as well. [Name] feels herself relaxing even more, her ragged breaths becoming more spaced out. She squeezes Kuroo’s hand before falling asleep.

***

Opening her eyes, she finds herself in a familiar forest. It takes her seconds to realize where she was. Everything looked so different, the beautiful tall trees around were starting to die, the fairy flower homes had wilted away, there was no sign of life around.

“Where’s everybody?” She asks herself, walking around, checking under dead leaves and dying flowers. No sign of any faires bustling around like they were the first time she came here. This eerie silence was starting to creep her out. “Hello?” She calls out, crossing her fingers in hope that nothing was wrong.

“Good witch!” A squeaky voice peeps up from behind her. [Name] jumps out of her skin and turns around with a startled look on her face. A tiny fairy was floating close to her face, her tiny face was equally as started as [Name] was. “S-sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you!”

“D-don’t apologize! It’s fine!” Strings of apologizes erupt from both parties. Pigments of red color their cheeks, they shuffled around awkwardly before the fairy speaks up again, remember she had a mission to complete.

“Mother has sent me to get you. She says she has something important to speak to you about.” The worry was clearly laced in the fairy’s words, [Name] slowly nods and allows herself to be lead by the fairy.

The trees were falling down around them.

“What’s happening?” Her curiosity was getting the best of her. The fairy looks at her from her peripheral vision, her tone comes out gloomy when she answers [Name].

“It’s best if Mother explains everything.”

Pushes past a few branches, they enter the same opening where [Name] first met Mother. There in the middle, surrounded by a bunch of fairies, sat an old woman with long white hair. [Name] didn’t recognize her at first, but then it sets in.

“Mother…” [Name] clamps her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide in horror at the sight of Mother Nature. She no longer held that same vibrant youth she once did when they first met, her skin was all wrinkled and her eyes didn’t have that bright twinkle anymore. The red and black roses that made up her flower crown were old and dying, they also no longer contained youthful radiance. [Name] runs up to Mother, the fairies attending to Mother fly away to leave the two alone as [Name] kneels down next to her.

“[Name]... is that you?” Mother asks, her eyes were turning a light shade of blue, her hair was turning white and falling out.

“Yes Mother, it’s me.” [Name] gently wraps her arms around Mother. Mother’s skinny and weak arms raise up enough to partially wrap them around [Name]’s waist. The hug was heartfelt, loving, and sad. Mother pulls away to look at [Name] though her blind eyes.

“My child, it’s your time to shine. You have found the fountain of youth, you have discovered that your blood was able to grow those plants, and you’ve managed to get the spirits of nature on your side. Today I die, so as a parting gift, I will pass on my legacy to you. Will you be a dear and help me sit up?”

“Anything for you Mother.” Even though [Name] didn’t understand half of the things Mother said, she still

“Now sit down in front of me, with your back facing me.”

[Name] stifles a giggle as Mother traces her finger on [Name]’s skin. It tickled, in her mind she tried to guess what was being drawn on her back. Mother’s hands were soft, the feeling was relaxing. Mother lifts to finger and draws one last line before speaking up.

“I’m done.”

“Can I see?”

“Of course you can.” With a snap of Mother’s fingers, a couple of fairies fly in holding a mirror, the place it behind [Name] so she could get a good look at it. When her eyes land on the tattoo, she let’s out a small gasps. It was an upside down triangle with a sideways line going through it.

“It kinda looks like the one Tetsu got!” She giggles, tracing her fingers over her newly acquired tattoo. Mother looks crestfallen at the mention of Kuroo’s tattoo, but the oblivious human girl doesn’t notice.

“[Name], look at me.” Mother reaches out and grips [Name]’s chin in between her fingers, turning [Name]’s head to force her to make eye contact with her. “It’s time for me to die. From the moment you wake up, you’ll be in charge of the re-birth of Earth. I’m so sorry to put all this responsibility on your hands in such a short amount of time, but I had no choice. Just promise me, whatever you do, don’t become the sacrificial lamb for the Gods and Goddesses. You’ll have to let the other three children of the elements die, while you survive.”

“I p-promise, Mother.” [Name] voice is shaky, her eyes wide with fear and waterfalls of tears are pouring out. Mother sighs out in relief, her warm smile gracing her wrinkly face. Mother tries to caress [Name]’s cheek again but her hand breaks off, turning into dust and flying off with the breeze.

“Mother!” [Name] cries out, her nose is running wild, her dripping mucus is mixing in with her salty tears. Mother hushes her.

“It’s my time. I must go.” Mother’s body begins to dissolve into a storm of dust.

“No don’t leave me!” [Name] screams, reaches out to grab her, but all she managed to catch is a handful of sand and her last words.

_I’m sorry my child._

***

[Name] opens her eyes to find Iris sleeping on top of her, and Kuroo right next to her, with his arms wrapped around both girls. Her [Eye Color] eyes eyes trail over Kuroo’s peacefully resting face. Her hand reaches up to trace her finger against his jaw line.

He moves a bit in his sleep, his eyebrows knitting together to form a frown. Pulling her hand away, she instead rests her hand against his chest, feeling the gentle beating of his heart. [Name] nuzzles her face into the warm skin of Kuroo’s neck. Her temperature has gone down back to normal and now the coldness of the night was slipping into her bones, she seeked warmth.

 _Let the others die._ But what if they had families like she did? It didn’t seem fair

Closing her eyes again, wrapping an arm tightly around Iris, she whispers one last thing into the night as she falls back to sleep with small droplets of tears running down the side of her face.

_I’m sorry, Mother. I can’t allow others to suffer while I go on living._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, reader is sick and seeing some crraaazzzyy shit. I bring it up again, is this really a dark fantasy or maybe I'm just writing about a group of kids that are bad tripping. I don't know, we'll find out eventually.
> 
> Fun Fact: I based the angel and demon scene on my own personal experience. I've mentioned this before, but when I was younger I used to get frequent nosebleeds. So like one time I got a really bad nosebleed (this was the same day I had that vision about Jesus, but that happened after what I'm about to tell you right now) so I woke up and saw these angels and demons standing around me, they were talking about me dying and who was going to take me. I was like in 1st or 2nd grade when this happened so you know this really freaked me out. Idk if it was a dream or not, but I can still remember it very vividly and it gives me the chills whenever I think about it... yeaahh. That was a fun fact about me (Chapter 10 was also a fun fact about me hehe)


	12. Sand Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ushijima gets his own showtime!

Today was Ushijima’s day to walk around and search the area for any uninvited guests. No humans were around, just some mutated animals bouncing around. Same old, same old.

The crunching sound of twigs and leaves being crushed under his boots. He swings his battle ax around, chopping down a couple of the skinny and weak trees standing around. He had been looking at the ground when he looked up he spotted something— or someone— who made his face twist in disgust.

Leaning against the tree in front of Ushijima, was a boy with spiky white hair, gray eyes, he’s got one foot planted against the tree trunk and his arms are crossed against his chest. He’s looking at Ushijima with amusement.

“What the fuck do you want?” Ushijima growls at the boy. He wanted to punch that smirk off the boy’s face so badly, but he was busy on lookout right now and [Name] was making dinner, so he didn’t want to be late. Ushijima walks past the boy to continue his job.

“What? I can’t come and visit my little puppet?” The boy pushes himself off from the tree and walks along beside Ushijima.

“Why is it with all you Gods and labelling me as a puppet?” He was getting annoyed, it was like this every time they came to him, they would always call him puppet or scapegoat.

“You haven’t been using your powers.” The God completely ignores Ushijima’s question. He was God of the Sky, he didn’t have time to answer stupid questions. “After all the trouble I went through to come here and give up some of my powers to you.”

“I don’t want your stupid powers. Take them back.” Ushijima starts walking away faster. He didn’t want to hear any of this anymore. He made a stupid mistake, he traded in his pride for this bullshit curse.

“You know that’s not possible.”

“Lies. You’re a God, of course it’s possible.”

“Hey, even Gods have their limits.” The God shrugs his shoulders, his tiny smile never leaves his face. Ushijima groans. He knows that he’s lying, what kind of King of Gods can’t reverse the thing he did? He gave birth to a Goddess, he placed the souls of past fallen lovers in the sky, so what was so hard about taking powers away? “I may be Zeus, but I’m not the only God in this universe.”

Ushijima opens his mouth to reply with a snarky comment, but he decides to keep his comment to himself, so he closes his mouth and keeps on walking. He still hadn’t finished checking the place, so he was gonna go that before started a fight with the God next to him.

Zeus follows Ushijima, humming a song. Neither one of them say anything during the job, which made Ushijima a bit more happy— but not enough to completely forgive the asshole God. With the job done, Ushijima leads Zeus farther away from the cabin so they could talk without any interruption.

On the walk to the mountain nearby, Ushijima keeps looking at Zeus from the corner of his eye. This was about the third time they’ve met in person, sixth time total including the dreams. When he first met him, he was expecting Zeus to be some gross-looking old man that sexually harassed young women, but no, instead he was face to face with this good-looking young man.

“What? Are you staring at me because of this huge zit on my face?” Zeus’ fingers reach up to poke the small pimple on the side of his forehead.

“I’m still just in surprised at how young you look.” Ushijima replies. Zeus starts laughing his head off, he stops walking and clutches at his stomach.

“I’m a God! I can look however I want, I mean—  how else would I get so many ladies to run right into my arms? Old man version sure ain’t gonna do that.” Zeus wipes away the tears that formed at the corner of his eyes.

“So you can change your appearance but you can’t get part of your powers back?”

“Why do you want to return the gift I gave you? You know it’s not often that I give humans gifts, especially one like this. You should feel special that I gave you _half_ of my powers.”

“Gift? You call this curse a gift? I don’t want it, I never wanted it, you forced this mark—” Ushijima stops walking to lift up the back of his shirt to show the facing upwards triangle with a horizontal line going through it. “—on me! You tricked me into doing this for my friends!”

“Hey, hey, hey. It’s not my fault that I thought they were endanger.” Zeus backs away from Ushijima, raising his hands up in defensive mode. “But isn’t it nice knowing that you’d trade half of your lifespan for your friends? I wish I had a loyal and protective friend like you.”

“And it’s not like you needed all those years of life anyways. You’re still going to die a broken and used up pawn. It’s better that your life ends sooner to save you from all that extra pain. I’m quite the selfless guy. You should be thanking me.”

Ushijima’s face is turning red from anger. He’s scrowling and his teeth are tightly clenched, to the point where it looked like they might break. His knuckles turn white from their tight grip on the battle ax.

Zeus jumps back a couple more feet, he pulls out his own sword. He knows what’s going to happen, this is going exactly as he planned out. He just had to poke around at the pain a bit more and he’ll be done.

“Hey, you should be happy that I’m your patron. The child of fire is forced to have Prometheus as his patron, but the poor fool thinks it’s Lucifer who’s been leading him on his excruciatingly painful journey.”

“How do I know you’re not lying? Just like that kid, you could be a mask for the real patron leading me!” Ushijima runs towards Zeus, blindly swinging his sword at the God. Zeus easily blocks off all the attacks with his own sword. Ushijima was acting recklessly, and his temper was rising.

“The only sin I’ve ever committed was lust. Why are you acting like you’re some sort of saint? If I’m correct, you lied to your friends the first time we met. You, and I quote, said ‘I chased down a couple of fully armed strangers’ then you went on to say you killed them and send their corpses down the river. Wow Mr. Hero, how would they react when they find out that was a lie and that you were actually standing at the edge of a cliff looking so determined.”

“Fuck off.” Ushijima growls, raises up his battle ax and swinging down to clash the blade against Zeus’ sword. The air around them grows tense, the winds start picking up, blowing dust and dirt all over the place. Zeus’ eyes turn bright white, a sneer making an appearance on his face.

“Why are you getting so angry? I’m just telling you the truth!” Zeus yells back, jumping back a bit so he could run back into the fight at full speed. Years of training and fighting helped Ushijima in this battle against Zeus. Every time their blades met, it felt like two winds from opposite directions clashing against each other.

They kept on fighting, the opposing winds getting stronger and stronger the more the two males got angrier. Trees started falling down, weak bushes were ripped out of the ground and thrown in some random direction. They were so caught up in their fight they didn’t notice the approaching storm in the distance until specks of sand started to attack them.

“A sand storm?” Ushijima stops the fighting, he stares at the cloud of dust that’s coming near them. Zeus chuckles. He puts his hand out, letting a pile of sand gather up on his palm.

“Looks like Mother Nature has released her final breath.” His gray eyes light up in amusement, as the sand cloud covers them. Ushijima covers his eyes to protect them from the attacking sand. He cracks his eyes open a bit to find Zeus standing not to far away, a small mocking look in his eyes, his lips form syllables before a sudden gust of sand passes by, preventing Ushijima from seeing Zeus.

“What did you say?” He shouts out, regretting it when he gets sand in his mouth, the tiny rocks spreading out over his tongue. He had to get out of this storm, and as much as he didn’t want to use his powers, he had to if he wanted to get out alive. The mark on his back spreads pain across his body as Ushijima uses his power to derail the storm. The cloud breaks off, spreading into different directions, but no longer the powerful storm it used to be.

Ushijima gasps, falling down on the ground and violently coughing. He looks up to look at Zeus but finds that he’s disappeared. He covers his face, putting himself in a fetal position in the hopes that it would somehow lessen his pain, but thanks to his misfortune, it doesn’t. A light breeze that sounded like a chuckle, he heard that familiar voice in his ears.

_“Come on, puppet boy. Go open the curtains, show the audience that our protagonist is about to make their grand appearance.”_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I feel like some of you might be confused with this chapter. Basically it turns out that Ushijima has met up with Zeus before (behind the scenes, totally making their own story line) and like Kuroo, he had a deal with someone to protect his friends, the only difference is that Ushijima offered up half of his life for these powers and it turns out that Zeus was just lying about them being in trouble, so he tricked Ushijima. What a fucking asshole. Talk about that God is a Jerk trope. 
> 
> Fun Fact: I'm trying my hardest not to cry from how terrible I feel this chapter is, I couldn't bring out my inner English teacher out on this one.


	13. Lava

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mainly focused on Kuroo

“Why are we leaving?” [Name] questions, following closely behind Kuroo. The boy had been mumbling about a mountain for the past few days. At first, it started off as sleeptalking, he would toss and turn in the bed causing poor little [Name] to get little sleep.

Sleeptalking turned into whispering. He would whisper to himself, but only when he was sure that he was alone. He’d look out the cabin windows, watching the distance with worry clouding up his eyes.

Whispering turned to talking to himself in front of people. They would be sitting down in the living room, playing an imaginary game when Kuroo would suddenly jump out of his seat, speed walk to the window and start talking out loud to himself.

Talking out loud turned to him talking to group members and shaking them about, yelling about impending danger, his eyes screamed distress and fear. His worries were getting scary for the group members, during one of his moments he had scared Iris to the point where she moved into Kenma’s room, no longer wanting to room with [Name] and Kuroo.

“Oi Kuroo!” Bokuto shouts. His hands placed on his hips and a frown present on his face. Everyone was clearly upset with Kuroo at the moment. From the minute they woke up, Kuroo was already packing everyone’s bags, forcing everyone into their jackets and walking all over the cabin to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything.

“Hurry up! We have to leave now!” Kuroo shouts, his voice cracks causing Bokuto’s serious demeanor to break. Hey, it was a once in a lifetime thing when Kuroo’s voice cracked, and wow it was fucking hilarious when it did.

“Kuroo!” [Name] shouts, stopping in front of Kuroo to stop him from walking, but this doesn’t stand up as an obstacle for him, he just picks her up by the waist and puts her down somewhere else where she’s not standing in his way anymore. “Kuroo! Where are we going?”

“Somewhere far away. Somewhere safe.” Kuroo picks up a couple of bags and throws them at his other teammates. “Bokuto, you carry Iris. If we leave now and run it for a bit we might just make it to safety.” Kuroo’s face was determined on leaving as soon as possible, but with no proper explanation, his teammates just couldn’t go through with it.

Bokuto, Kenma, Oikawa, and Iwaizumi stare at each other, Ushijima just sat on the couch, looking at [Name]’s dangling feet. All together they collectively speak up, “No.”

Kuroo pauses in his tracks, [Name] squirms around so he puts her down, but doesn’t release his hold on her waist. “No? What do you mean no?” He was their leader, why weren’t they following his orders? Time was running out, the vibrations on the floor were getting worse.

“Kuroo, we’re not going. You haven’t given us a proper explanation for your insanity, you’re just exhausted and stressed out, there’s nothing wrong going on.” Iwaizumi speaks up. He shuffles his feet awkwardly, he didn’t want Kuroo to take this the wrong way.

“I don’t need to properly explain this to you guys. We’re in danger if we stay here any longer. Come on, Molly. Grab your stuff and get Iris.” Kuroo let’s go of [Name]’s waist to get a grip on her wrist. He tries pulling her, but she doesn’t budge. Instead [Name] yanks her hand away from Kuroo and backs away from him. “[Name]?”

Her eyes were full of conflicting emotions. Not once has she ever defied Kuroo’s plans. She doesn’t make eye contact with him, she knows that he’s hurt and if she looks in his eyes, she might agree to leave with him in guilt. “I’m sorry Kuroo, but I’m not going, I’m staying here.”

Kuroo stops moving. He stares at the group and at [Name] who had her head bowed down, looking at her feet. He felt hurt, his heart panged with this pain he’s never felt before. They were friends, teammates, family; why were they doing this to him? He looks at his teammates in the eyes, he looks at them with that ‘are-you-fucking-serious?’ look on his face, all they do is look away.

“Okay, fine. Stay here, all of you. I don’t need any of you.” Kuroo growls, picking up his bag and stomping to the door, he doesn’t look back when he hears a hiccup erupt from [Name], he just walks out the cabin door and slams it shut behind him.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Inside the cabin, [Name] falls down on her knees, crying. She covers her face with her hands, her heart cracked the moment the door slammed shut; Oikawa kneels down beside her, he felt a lump form in his throat, everyone in the room felt some kind of pain with Kuroo leaving. He was their friend, but they just couldn’t follow him this time. They hoped that he was just said what he said in a flare of anger and that he’d be back soon to say he was only joking.

***

Kuroo trudged through the forest in anger. He was talking out loud to himself, every once in awhile turning his head back in the direction of the cabin and then looking to the side to look at the mountain that sat not too far in the distance.

His eyes narrowed down, his vision still clouded in hazy red blur. Screw them, if they didn’t want to live, he’d just leave them. They were heavy baggage, and he was going to escape while he had time.

He grumble shit about everyone under his breath. He was so angry, so hurt. He felt betrayed by the people he loved and trusted with his life. Kuroo takes his gloves off, staring at them with a burning glare, it was unfortunate that they wouldn’t burn under his touch. He puts them in his backpack because— despite how angry he was—  a part of him couldn’t bear parting with them.

“Oh? Is the little baby mad?” A mocking voice appears from behind Kuroo, He knows who the owner of the voice is, but he’s not interested in listening to his bullshit today.

“Go away, Lucifer.” Kuroo mumbles, his eyes constantly moving back and forth from the mountain then back to the path in front of him. Lucifer chuckles, jogging a bit to walk side-by-side with Kuroo.

“So where’s the rest of your crew? Are they falling behind? Why are you mad and walking so fast? Aren’t you going to wait for them?” Lucifer’s questions come at Kuroo non-stop. The bedhead boy was getting annoyed. He didn’t want to remember the events that had just recently occurred back at the cabin.

“Get away from me.” Kuroo mumbles, pushing Lucifer away and picking up the pace. The rude gesture doesn’t stop Lucifer from continuing his pestering session. The Devil continues to follow Kuroo, but doesn’t walk along side him, he would only get pushed away again.

“Did something happen between you and them? DId they finally get sick and tired of your shitty leadership skills? Did the people revolt against their precious leader?”

Kuroo stops walking, his fists tightly clenched together, Lucifer smiled at the sight of smoke radiating off his skin. Kuroo turns around sharply to face the Lucifer, his eyes narrowed down into a burning glare. “Fuck off!” He yells right into Lucifer’s face.

“Oh! I got it. You’ve been exiled by your family, just like me. You had a fight with them and they fought back, just like me. Your pride got the best of you, just like me. You’re just like me, the only difference is that you were already in a seat of power, while your family were striving for that power— like I was.” Lucifer’s words strike something in Kuroo’s soul. Kuroo grabs Lucifer by the collar of his shirt and roughly pins him against a nearby tree. Kuroo’s baring his teeth in warning. Lucifer doesn’t look scared in the slightest bit, he just looks Kuroo straight in the eyes and smiles.

“I am nothing like you. Don’t you dare compare me to yourself.” The vibrations in the ground start getting stronger the more Kuroo gets angry.

“We’re very much alike, and now that I’ve given you those powers, we’re like very similar, we could almost consider each other family— brothers.” Lucifer keeps on going down the path that would incite the most anger from Kuroo, just a few more and bam, he’ll have Kuroo cornered with only two choices to decide upon.

“Shut. Up.” Kuroos growling, lashing at Lucifer in a beastly way. Lucifer found amusement in Kuroo’s behavior; it was funny how humans could get so primal when they lost their tempers, as if all the millions of years of evolution had just been flushed down the drain.

The vibrations grow harder, the rumbling of falling rocks in the distance didn’t distract the boys. They were staring each other dead on, Kuroo was already in his kill position while Lucifer was looking more confident than he should. Just because he was the devil, doesn’t mean he can’t be beaten.

“We’re two peas in a pod. You ever heard of the expression, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?” Lucifer pulls out a shiny red apple from his back and shoves it in front of Kuroo’s face. “My friend, you are immortal now. Nothing will ever kill you, you are bound to the earth where you shall spend the rest of eternity walking through this dead land, watching your loved ones died over and over again. Eat this apple so you can join me in Hell. I’ll even give you a throne, become a prince or a leader if you so desire.”

The apple looked to good to be true. Kuroo had ate not too long ago but he found his stomach make inhumane noises at the sight and smell of the apple. The red was the same shade of blood, it was shiny as if it had been polished, and he could see his own reflection in the apple, but that wasn’t the only thing he could see.

He saw himself in Hell, sitting on a throne right next to Lucifer, just like he said. He saw himself smiling and laughing, having a good time with all the demons around him, he had succubi hanging from the arms, giggling and begging to please him in any and every way possible.

The image changes to his team. After his departure, Ushijma had taken up the role of leader and he was doing a damn better job at leading than Kuroo ever did. The image shows everyone laying around looking happy. Ushijima had his arms wrapped around [Name]’s waist, twirling her around while she laughed. Everything looked… nice. They looked so happy without him…

Kuroo let’s go of his hold on Lucifer’s shirt collar, he slaps the apple out of Lucifer’s hands and kicks the fruit away, far away. Kuroo screams, raising up his fist to punch Lucifer, but the Devil dodges before it makes contact with his face. Kuroo’s fist collides with the trunk of a tree, immediately making the tree burst up in flames.

Lucifer backs away, standing behind the angered boy. He makes an “ooo” sound as he watches the tree burn down, the flames forming the image of a laughing demon. In the distance smoke is seen in the distance where the mountain stood still.

The air turns hot, like summertime hot. It was fall so it shouldn’t feel like this. Kuroo looks up, staring at the mountain, from the top smoke and reddish-orange liquid was shooting out and rushing down the side.

“Shit…” Kuroo mumbles. He had time to run, but this asshole just had to make an appearance today. He looks back at Lucifer through his peripheral vision. The Devil stands there, hands in his pockets, and that arrogant smirk on his face. His purple eyes were staring Kuroo down.

“So what are you going to do now, hero?”

“I’m leaving, that’s what I’m going to do.” Kuroo pushes himself away from the tree, walking away from the mountain. If he sprinted he would probably make it somewhere safe. Lucifer chuckles, going back to following Kuroo.

“So you’re just going to leave them behind? Let them burn in the lava you summoned?”

Kuroo keeps quiet, he didn’t have to answer Lucifer; he wasn’t being forced to give him his reasons for leaving. Kuroo’s eyes were trained on the ground, watching the brown leaves break into tiny little pieces under his boots. The same thing would happen to them…

 _Ugh…_ He slapped himself, why was he thinking about them? They hurt him, they betrayed him. He shouldn’t be worried about the people who stabbed his heart out and buried it ten feet underground. The long forgotten apple appears in front of Kuroo, he stops walking to stare down at it’s reflective skin.

All he sees is himself; pale, hair messier than usual, dark bags underneath his eyes. He was disgusted with how he looked, and when he was about to look away from the apple, Lucifer stops him by forcing his head to keep looking down.

“Keep looking and then make your decision afterwards.”

Kuroo’s eyes stay trained on the apple. The imagine changes to show his friends all screaming, running away from something, they were looking at the ground and backing away; the image zooms out to show lava surrounding the house, blocking off all the exits. Lava splashes up on some of the wood, setting the cabin on fire.

The hands on the sides of his head let go, he’s able to take a look around. Some of the trees are already up in flames and the lava and moving down towards them.

“Lava is fire, this is right in your range. Consider this as practice to strengthen your powers.” Lucifer says, he knows that Kuroo is having a difficult time deciding what to do. His pride is at stake, but so are his friends. Kuroo looks at Lucifer, his eyes are wide but he understand what he means, so Kuroo runs off into the direction of the burning cabin.

Lucifer let’s out a low whistle before walking away. Down the path, he jumps over a small trickle of lava already reaching this part of the woods. His purple eyes land on a giant boulder in the distance, it seemed like he also had some company,

Lucifer walks to the boulder, going over to the other side to find a tall man with dirty blond hair, he was wearing a black and white suit, a fedora placed on top of his head. He was currently lighting up a cigarette, when Lucifer coughed to announce his presence. Prometheus jumped a bit in surprise, the fire of the lighter touching his skin, but not initiating any of his pain receptors.

“Oh, Hello Lucifer. You finished already?”

“It was nice making this deal with you, Prometheus. You have my prize?” Lucifer completely skips over the formalities, he just wanted to get straight to the point. He did his job, now he wants his fair cut. Prometheus chuckles, lighting up his cigarette and breathing in the smoke before blowing it back out.

“Ah Lucifer, always so serious. Come on, relax and smoke one with me.” Prometheus pulls out a cigarette box and pushes it towards Lucifer. Lucifer just shakes his head.

“No thanks. I just want my prize, I have things I need to do.” Lucifer leans against the boulder while Prometheus just sighs, but nods his head; he leans down to pick up a suitcase sitting down by his feet and throws it towards Lucifer. The Devil catches it and opens to make sure his prize was the real deal and not some scam, these Gods sure liked to lie, what a bunch of hypocrites.

Popping open the buttons, he opens the case. A twisted smile erupts on his face. In the case laid the severed heads of his Father and brothers. He closes the suitcase against and rests his head against the solid surface of the boulder. “You know what? I’ll take up that cigarette offer.”

“You had the chance to take one, I’m not pulling the box back out.”

“Tch.” Lucifer clicks his tongue against his teeth, but the rejection doesn’t derail the excitement he’s currently feeling. He got exactly what he wanted and all he had to do was provoke some human kid.

The distant rumbling of the volcano fills up the silent air. Prometheus moves away from the boulder, dropping his cigarette on the ground and stepping on it. He was about to take his leave when Lucifer speaks up.

“How long do you think he’ll last?” His purple eyes concentrate on Prometheus’ back.

“Not long,” Prometheus laughs, his orange eyes blazing from the fire within. “Even though he’s immortal, he’s no God. The fire of the Gods will eventually consume him, eating away the rest of his sanity and leaving him nothing but a shell of an empty and insane man. Well I’ll see you later.” Then throws an unopened pack of cigarettes at Lucifer before walking away.

***

Kuroo runs through the woods, his feet running through the running lava. It burned off his boots and charred the edges of his pants and the parts of his clothes where the lava landed on. The screams of his teammates haunted his mind, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t save them.

When he was getting near to the cabin, he couldn’t tell if the screams he was hearing were from them in reality or if his mind was still replying the visions the apple had shown him. Either way, he wanted the screaming to stop.

He sees the burning house and hears the ear piercing screams. His bare feet splash the lava around, the cabin wouldn’t last longer, and neither would his friends so the option was breaking down the cabin door where he finds his friends huddled together in the middle of the cabin, the main ones screaming were Bokuto, Iris, [Name], and Oikawa.

“K-Kuroo…” [Name] whispers. He kneeling in front of them, his arms wrapped around them, making sure that his naked hands don’t touch any of them. They stand in the middle of the cabin, the lava was surrounding them. [Name] wraps her arms around Kuroo, burying her face in his chest. This was the end. This was how they would die. “I’m so sorry…”

Kuroo looks down at her, she’s trembling and her tears are staining his shirt. He looks at the rest of his team. They’re all huddled together, shaking and praying. Their eyes are closed, and pricks of tears are visible falling down their skin.

“Don’t worry you guys. I’ll protect you.” He whispers, planting a small kiss on the top of [Name]’s head. He closes his eyes, concentrating all his energy outside. The tattoo on his back starts to hurt, but concentration was weaving, but he couldn’t lose focus or else he’d burn his friends to death.

His vision starts to blur, all these colors are swirling around him.

 _Not yet… not yet… just a few more seconds…_ Kuroo’s forcing himself to keep his eyes open, he can feel the lava reaching his feet, to him it felt like normal warm water and not molting rock. He feels his friends trembling even more, the lava hasn’t reached them yet.

The lava around his feet starts to solidify; the more he concentrates, the faster the lava turns solid and the more black dots start to obscure his vision. Slowly the lava surrounding his friends stops and turns solid as well, everything stops and hardens. Knowing that his friends are okay now, he could rest for a bit now.

Kuroo slowly closes his eyes, releasing his hold on his friends and resting his head on [Name]’s shoulders.

Kuroo! He hears their voices calling out his name, his barely open eyes see their blurry faces close to his. The kept calling out his name, tears rushing down their faces. He couldn’t help but let out a small smile and saying one last thing before he passed out.

_“I won… I’m nothing like him.”_

***

“Whoa…” Bokuto whispers, grabbing his sword and poking at the cooled off rock to make sure it still wasn’t hot. Everyone was inspecting the damage of the lava while Kuroo—who woke up not too long ago— stared at his hands, he bends down to grab a slightly damaged pillow and picks it, he was prepared to chuck it deep into the woods just in case it burst into flames; but fortunately for him, when his hand touch the fabric, nothing happened.

He keeps staring at his hands in shock. There was no way that his powers were gone, so he looks up to make sure that everyone was looking away for him to test it out. He focuses all his concentration on his hand, his face was getting red and his eyes were drying up when the palm of his hand started a small flame.

The shock had him falling backwards in surprise. Everyone looked away from the igneous rock to laugh at Kuroo. Luckily the flame in his hand died out before anyone saw.

“Oh Kuroo.” [Name] chuckles, holding her hand out for him to grab it. He stares at her hand, fear was still chewing at his heart, he still couldn’t believe the control he had over his powers now. He looks at her eyes, they’re sincere and full of joy.

“Shut up.” Kuroo mumbles, taking her hand and getting up. The group gathers around for laughs, cheers, hugs, and love.

Prometheus looks at the scene from behind a tree. His face contorts at the heartwarming. This act had a happy ending when it should have had a tragic one; this wouldn’t do, this just won’t do. It was time to start writing a new script.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOWOW Chapter 13 and I got about 7 more chapters to write so I can catch up with my schedule. Maybe I'll have 1 or 2 chapters posted for tomorrow, but no promises (since I'm very bad at writing when I make my own deadlines, but I'll still try my hardest.
> 
> I apologize if this chapter and the last one seemed rushed (because they were, I was trying to post them as soon as possible)
> 
> Fun Fact: Prometheus was the Titan that stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to mankind. He is also known for being a trickster. Hehehe... wait till y'all see the shit I make this asshole do. HA


	14. Inspiration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who doesn't love a good ol' carnival?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen to Carousel by Melanie Martinez if you want to during this chapter.

“Moving is always difficult, but we’ll get used to this place in no time.” Kuroo says, trying to be as optimistic as possible. After the whole volcano eruption, their cabin home had been destroyed, along with some of their belongings, so their only good option was moving further down south where they wouldn’t have to worry about the cold.

Walking down the old and abandoned boardwalk, Iris beamed in joy at the sight of the vast ocean. Her tiny hands tug against [Name]’s slightly larger one. Iris looks up at [Name] with big doe eyes, and immediately the older girl knows what the child wants.

“I guess you can go… just be careful, okay? Stay where I can see you and shout if you’re in danger.” [Name] hesitantly lets go of Iris’ hand. Ever since [Name] took Iris in, she was very overprotective of her, making sure she never ran off too far and teaching her how to use the small dagger Ushijima and Iwaizumi made for her.

Iris cheers, running off the moment she was given permission to go. Her shoes come flying off, high pitch squeals erupting from her throat when the sand touches the soles of her feet. The sand buries itself in between her little toes, with every step she takes towards the water.

[Name] sighs, looking back at the boys, they were all busy breaking into the abandoned buildings on the the boardwalk; since they were occupied she decided that looking around at the ghost town wouldn’t be such a bad idea; she need inspiration for more bedtime stories after all.

There was a broken down carnival not too far, and she could see everyone from there, and running away from danger would be easy, but just in case, she brings her trusty ax with her. 

While making her way towards the other end of the boardwalk, she keeps looking over her shoulder to check up on Iris and the others. It seems that Oikawa noticed Iris playing all by herself in the water, so he went over to play with her. The scene makes [Name] sigh in relief, at least Iris wasn’t alone anymore.

The sun was setting but the temperature was only going down a few degrees. [Name] stared around in amazement at the beauty this torn down place. The place didn’t take much damage from the war, so all the damages the property currently had was just from all the years of not being maintained.

“Beautiful…” The word pops out from her mouth when she walks past through the carousel, her fingers brushing against the face of a horse that was missing an eye and had cracks all over it’s body. She couldn’t believe that this once used to be a place full of people, all smiling and laughing, making happy memories; now it was empty of all souls, the coasters cried out in the pain of being abandoned, the place slowly self-destructing letting itself be taken over by the surrounding nature.

Her eyes look around, the shadows running across the walls, coming out now that the sun was setting further down the horizon behind the thick veil of clouds. Whispers fill her ears but no one was around. Her guard goes up, she holds her ax in a ready-to-attack position.

The carnival was empty of all souls, it was clearly evident with all the dust forming on some of the rides, that no one has come across this place in ages. She looks at the old posters and signs hanging up on the wooden walls of some of the stands.

_ Freakshow… huh?  _ The poster held a photo of four teens, two boys and two girls. The fire eater, the animal whisperer, the boy who could fly, and the mermaid. Each kid dealt with something in the elements. “That must have been a good show to attend back then…” She keeps looking at the poster for a few seconds longer before she walks off to find more interesting things.

Walking further down to the middle of the carnival, she finds a small building. Walking over to the wooden door, it had a sign nailed onto it that read: “Employees Only.” Since no one was around, it wouldn’t hurt to take a peak, right? The door was locked, so [Name] used the handle of her ax to break it down. A cloud of dust explodes in front of her as soon as the door breaks away.

“Fuck.” She coughs, waving a hand in front of her face to get the dust away. A couple of rats run out of the dark room and to the freedom the outside world holds. The room smells of rotting dead animals, and she can faintly see the webs of black widow spiders in the corners.

This was the control room, everything looked untouched and neat. The large control panel was covered with a thick coating of dust. [Name] blows over the buttons to get rid of some of that dust, the plan backfires when some dust attacks her again. After another coughing session, she wipes the small beads of tears away from her eyes before examining the control panel again. She eyes a  lever with the caption “Electricity” it was obvious it wouldn’t turn anything on now, so it’s wouldn’t hurt to just play around with it.

Her hands wrap around the dusty and cold metal, she tried to pull it down but it was jammed, so she used as much as energy and strength as possible to bring it down. Hey, maybe she could use this as bragging rights next time Kuroo teased her about being weak. The lever moves a bit, so a bit more energy and she manages to pull it all the way down. Suddenly the lights and music outside the carnival start up.

“Whoa!” [Name] falls back when the music blares out of the speakers around her. The lights and music fill up the empty space, the rides start up, and the creepy and machine toys around start moving. A couple of the rides start up, the first one being the carousel. “Shit!”

She realizes how huge of a mistake this was, she couldn’t stay here any longer or else she’d be overwhelmed by groups of people in the area. She ran out of the control room, looking all over the place to make sure no one was waiting to jump out on her. Her anxiety was getting the best of her, and she feared how Kuroo would react to this since he’s already found them a nice place to stay at for the meantime. Time to relocate again.

Every sound the music played, caused her to jump ten feet out of her skin. Paranoia eating away at her insides, she couldn’t tell if those shadows moving across the walls were fictional or really people attempting to yank her into their trap.

Her breathing was turning shallow, her eyes darting all over the place. Her heart stops when one of the shadows walks off from the wall, moving towards her. She stops running, fear putting her feet in cuffs to prevent her from running off. The shadow took the form of someone she used to know, his hand stretching out to reach for her. Her heart cried at her to touch him, but her brain screamed to run.  _ Danger. _

“Akaashi…” She feels the tears welling up in the corner of her eyes, the darkness surrounding him slowly dissipates, revealing his bloody body, multiple knife wounds littered his body. His eyes looked the same, but they didn’t look at her with that warm gaze he always he had around her. Akaashi pats her head, his other hand gently wrapping itself around her neck.

“[Name]!” Kuroo’s voice interrupts the moment. Akaashi pulls his hand away when he hears Kuroo’s voice. His image becomes disoriented, [Name] backs away from this demon who made her believe it was her old friend.

“You’re not Akaashi.” She whispers, raising her ax up in anger. The demon goes back to his original shadow form, backing away from [Name]. Her eyes burn red with anger, she starts recklessly swinging her ax. No one jokes around about Akaashi, he was a hero, he sacrificed himself for the group. The shadow keeps backing up, dodging all her attacks; this fuels her anger even more. The demon trips backwards, she’s caught it now. Raising up her ax, she prepares to send the finishing blow, but when she’s bringing it down, two hands stop her.

“Hey, hey.” Kuroo forces [Name] to let go of her ax to prevent any injuries to herself or anyone else. “It’s just us!”

The anger she held, slowly leaves her body with every deep exhale. Her [Eye Color] eyes look up at Kuroo, the veil of anger that covered up vision was gone. He turns her around so he could get a better look at her. “Kuroo…” She looks back to where the demon was, only to find it was gone.

“We heard the music and saw the lights but we couldn’t find you.” Kuroo shakes her around like a rag doll, his eyes looking deep into hers.

“K-Kuroo… st-top, I’m g-getting dizzy!” He stops shaking her, which was a good thing for her, she only had a small amount of food in her stomach and she didn’t want to end up throwing it up. Kuroo pulls her into a hug, wrapping an arm around her upper back and the other hand was pressed against the back of her head.

The group looks around at the carnival in amazement, but deep inside they were scared that this would attract unwanted attention from people hiding nearby. The music was blaring loudly, Oikawa and Bokuto couldn’t help but find the eerie way it sounded make this entire thing feel like they were in a zombie movie. They stood around in a circle, Iris hiding in the middle, while everyone had a close eye everywhere. If anyone appeared, they would attack.

It feels like ages, and the music wasn’t getting any less creepy. No one appeared, no crazy cannibals or ruthless muggers were running out to jump them. It seemed like this entire town really was abandoned, everyone— except the memories and ghosts— left this place behind.

“Well it seems like we’re alone… so how about we enjoy this?” Oikawa speaks up, putting his kamas in their special pouches. “When was the last time we’ve gone to a carnival? Ages ago. This is a dream come true for any little kid, being at the carnival alone and getting to do whatever you want. So let’s do it.”

Normally, Oikawa was banned from making any decisions like this, because the first time he did, they were ambushed by another group. So the ban on Oikawa’s childish decisions was set in place by Iwaizumi; so it was strange when everyone looked at each other and shrugged in agreement. 

Oikawa pulls Iris and Kenma to the bumper cars; Bokuto challenges Iwaizumi and Ushijima to the Test of Strength game; Kuroo and [Name] stood around watching everyone laugh, putting down of all the troubles they held on their shoulders and just enjoying this small moment 

“Let’s go on the carousel.” [Name] pulls Kuroo towards the moving ride. Kuroo helps her mount onto the ride and gets on after her. [Name] walks around the moving machine for a bit, deciding on which seat to take. Kuroo suggested they sat down on the seat made for two; but [Name] refuses and instead takes up the pretty white horse she had seen earlier.

She admired the condition of the horse, if she closed her eyes, she could hear the laughter of children who had ridden this horse before; not only that, but she could hear laughter and voices throughout the carnival. Opening up her eyes, she saw white figures walking around, each one of them different from the other; they wore clothing from different eras, spoke in different slang, their laughs were unique to each individual, everything was different even down to the way they smiled. She sees the good memories this Eden holds.

Kuroo took up the horse next to [Name]’s, the black horse. Unlike the white horse, the black horse didn’t have any noticeable damage, much to his surprise. His looks over at [Name], he sees her smiling with her eyes closed; she’s having a good time so he wants to do the same thing. So he closes his eyes, trying to feel the same euphoria that [Name] feels, he wants to go where she goes.

He hears the cries and whimpers of children, they cry about wanting to get off, the cries mix in with the sounds of arguing and yelling from all around the carnival. His eyes fly open with a gasp escaping from his lungs; he looks around to see people, all different from each other standing around, crying, arguing, ignoring. He sees the bad memories this Land of Nod holds.

Both teens turn their heads to look at each other. She wore a face of pure joy, he wore a face of complex distressed. When their eyes meet, their worlds change. Instead of seeing this world from one side of the spectrum, both universes collide to form one giant universe full of good and bad memories. They heard cries mixed with laughter, arguments mixed with agreements, people of different backgrounds and times joining together to fill up the abandoned carnival where time seemed to stop.

They break eye contact, but the world never separates. The ghostly figures of people continue on with their night. [Name] looks at the other seats on the carousel, they were once empty, but now filled up with children and happy couples.

Kuroo watches as [Name] as she stares at something ahead of her, he follows the direction of her gaze to find out she was looking a young couple, of about 15 or 16 years old. One partner sat on the headless zebra, holding hands with the other partner who sat on a giraffe missing its two front legs. 

They were laughing about something, when the giraffe rider leans over to plant a kiss on zebra rider’s lips; unfortunately for giraffe rider, they were too far to go through with the plans, and instead lips meet the dirty floor when giraffe rider falls off. The romantic mood should have been ruined between the two, but zebra rider just laughs up it, getting off and helping giraffe rider up, then zebra rider leans up and plants a kiss right on giraffe rider’s lips.

A small smile breaks out on [Name]’s face, and as the scene goes on, she breaks down in laughter. She found the moment to be the cutest and most romantic thing she’s ever seen. It’s a memory that’s been written into the carnival’s history, so the memory repeats a couple of times until the couple gets off the ride, going off to do other things together.

Kuroo watches as [Name] sighs in happiness, he knows that she’s happy for the two. That was true love, forever together that even death couldn’t do them part. His eyes trail over her face, she was laughing all over again for a whole new reason; he found that her laugh was perfect even if it did sound weird a couple of times; he found her to be beautiful, inside and out, imperfections and perfections. Seeing the couple gave Kuroo a new wave of confidence, he was going to tell [Name] exactly what he had been aiming to tell her all those years ago.

Kuroo gets off from his horse to stand next to [Name], her laughs matched the melody of the carnival music dancing in the air around them, the lights illuminated her to make her seem many years younger than she really was. The fountain of youth brought them back their youthful looks, but this carnival brought them back those years lost due to the war.

He leans forward, pressing his lips on the tip of her nose. “I love you. I adore you.”

“I love you too, Kuroo. I think I’ve found my inspiration.” A meeting of foreheads, a shared laugh, and an exchanged kiss end the night with another memory added to this land lost to time.

The set turns black and the curtain falls, intermission begins, and the audience claps. From the balcony a man and woman watch. A tragic mask covers the woman’s impassive face, one leg crossed over the other making her white dress shift to reveal the cothurnus she wore. She has her head propped up with her left hand while her right one twirls a knife around.

Her male companion sat next to her. His brown hair was neatly slicked back with gel, his anchor beard was just recently done for this special occasion. He watched the curtains draw close with a smile as he brought his glass of red wine to meet his lips. He stands up, brushing off some invisible dust off from his leopard skin suit then dumping the rest of his wine off the balcony, he drops his glass as well once it’s emptied of its alcoholic content.

“You ready, Melpomene?” The gentleman offers a hand to his still seated companion. The woman looks up at him, she removes her mask and puts her knife away, she gives him a small smile as she places her hand in his.

“Why yes I am. How about you Dionysus? Are you ready?”

“An actor must always be ready before the show.” The two smirk at each other, walking out of the balcony and down the secret hallway to get to their dressing rooms.

“It’s time for us to prepare for the next Act.”

_ Ladies and Gentlemen, intermission will end in five minutes. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Carnivals are great, especially abandoned carnivals. So let me get more into this chapter; I was aiming for those mirror parallels. Black and white (the horses) and then good and bad (memories). I used animal and color symbolism too. Let me start off with the black widow; black widows symbolize many things: Independence, cunning, trickster, hatred, fear, danger, etc. are some of the things I was aiming to use in this chapter and future chapters. As for horses, I used their color symbolism; Black horses mean: mystery, death, night, messenger of esoteric knowledge. White horses mean: light, sun, day, vitality, illumination, resurrection, messenger of birth. So yeah, like remember those two meanings when it comes to the characters I assigned them to (black horse- Kuroo; white horse- [Name]). And I brought the Muse of Tragedy back and she brings a friend along with her! Two Gods of Tragedy, what pain might they bring along with them? Until next time!
> 
> Fun Fact: Land of Nod is the opposite of Eden, mentioned in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew bible.   
> Another Fun Fact: Dionysus is also a the patron God of the Greek stage, he's been commonly associated with Tragedy. It's been said that in Older Greek Tragedies may have started off by sacrificing a goat on stage in his honor. Idk if this is true, but I read about it somewhere so.... the more ya know.

**Author's Note:**

> Idk I'm looking for ways to improve my writing style, hopefully this challenge can help me do so.


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